You know you’re spoiled when you go to a national monument just because you’re there and just because you can get in free with your national parks pass…and you’re relatively unimpressed.

Don’t these people look relatively unimpressed?

We were unimpressed with Casa Grande, mostly because it was hot and crowded and windy and the ruins were covered in plaster and just plain didn’t feel authentic. We totally understand that the plaster and metal and bricks were necessary to preserve the site, but, you see, we’ve seen quite a few ruins not covered in plaster, so we’re a little spoiled. But Casa Grande is still really cool. So…go there…just not when it’s hot and crowded and windy.

And then we got yelled at for breaking the unwritten rule…which we won’t tell you, because then it will be the written rule.

But that’s okay, because then we went to our camp site, which was at this church, Dove Mountain Lutheran in northern Tuscon:

With this playset:

And these sunsets:

From there we commuted to Grace where Steve gave a presentation and sang a song service. Afterwards they had a feast. Grace has church members named Hector and Hector’s mama.

Hector and Hector’s mama made hot tamales.

These are real hot tamales, not the midwestern hot tamales, which, I’m sorry, are not hot tamales. Midwestern hot tamales are sloppy joes, people! There I said it.

Look…real hot tamales:

Elijah is writing Hector and Hector’s mama for the recipe.

We’d tell you how to eat real hot tamales, but we’d rather watch you and laugh when you do it wrong, kinda like happened to us. We’ll give you a hint. On second thought, never mind. We’ll just laugh.

Because God makes things that are even better than hot tamales, here are a few more shots from our Tuscon campsite:

I told you we’re spoiled.