2018-4
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| in the desert southwest, the roads follow the terrain sometimes with roller-coaster affect |
Tucson AZ
Campground: Gilbert Ray county park.
$20 30 amp electric. Water and dump station available. Stunning
location but campsites are old and rather small/tight for many larger
campers.7 night max stay. constant moving of campers in and out of campsites. Caution, narrow roads, congestion.
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| Gilbert Ray, a county park |
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| Casino Del Sol |
Campground: Casino Del Sol. Free dry
camping, large parking lot in the rear and side of casino.
Campground: Private property. Gated
with house/swimming pool and a couple of mobile home lots converted
to Rv lot. $500 includes electric. 50 amp, full hookups
I was not able to get an rv spot at
Desert Trails, a very popular RV community with the snowbird crowd,
so I’ll be staying on a lot on private property off of Ajo Highway.
And I’ll be spending a few more days
Boondocking before I arrive at the private RV lot site. Along with a
lot of road construction around this side of town and I checked out a
small parcel of BLM land that Rv-ers use for free camping.
Unfortunately with the road construction and recent grading to make
larger roadside ditches for water runoff, the BLM site is difficult
to get into, with large ruts and that graded ditch preventing easy
access. My fifth wheel camper would be bouncing off of the trucks
bed rails for sure. I even drove the truck through the site accesses
and I was bouncing up and down all over the place before getting to
flat terrain.
The other option for the few extra days
of dry camping is a casino parking lot and that will do just fine for
my needs this time around.
I’ve already met up with a few great
RV friends staying at Desert Trails and look forward to starting up
my “Travel Club” at Desert Trails. Even though I won’t be
staying there, it’s nice to have the opportunity to share with like
minded travelers. Each meeting will cover a few Rv tips, online
resources and smartphone apps before we get into the main event of
the travel club which is to discuss various States to visit and
what’s interesting to visit, unique places, which roads to use or
not to use. Providing lots of tips for visiting those National
parks, state parks, and the many lesser known and out of the way
places off the main radar.
Gilbert Ray.
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| Gilbert Ray Campground, desert sunsets |
Surrounded by the Saguaro National
Park, which actually sits on the east and west side of Tucson,
Gilbert Ray county park couldn’t be a more pristine location. The
park is showing its age, as many of the campsites are small and not
all that easy to get into. After backing into my campsite, the truck
was completely blocking the roadway. Needless to say, I had a backup
of about a half a dozen vehicles waiting for me to disconnect the
camper from the truck and move the truck out of the roadway.
Couldn’t be helped.
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| Gilbert Ray, a CCC restroom |
There are of course many hiking trails
in the surrounding Saguaro desert. Today I walked around the park
and after seeing an old stone building, minus it’s roof I had the
beginnings of a day of exploring. The stone structure was apparently
one of the early restrooms. After taking a few great shots of it, I
came across two cactus that looked like cactus brains. Hadn’t seen
this type of barrel cactus before.
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| the concrete picnic table spaced out indicate this was probably a group campsite at one time |
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| most unusual cactus |
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| remnants of an old dirt road.... |
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| remains of picnic table as campsites since abandoned on road with sign Exit do not enter |
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| abandoned campsites |
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| large Ramada's at end of road. Looks like camp workers now use these premium sites with stone fireplaces, all at end of road with Exit sign do not enter.... |
A short distance along an old
dirt path I came across a circle of benches and concrete picnic
tables and beyond it an old paved road with only an “exit” sign,
discouraging anyone from going down it. Of course I had to see where
it led. Apparently this roadway was once part of the campground with
campsites, as I came across a number of dismantled concrete picnic
tables designating once original campsites. It wouldn’t have been
easy to dismantle those picnic tables as they are very well
constructed. At the end of the road were 4 campers surrounding a
turn-a-round loop with large Ramadas at each campsite. Looks like
they made this into a private area for some of the work campers as
the ramadas are very large and would have originally been used for
group campsites. With such an unbelievably popular campground (they
limit stays to 7 days), you’d think they would revamp all these
abandoned campsites. Off to one side, it looked like an old dirt
road going out into the desert which I’ll try and explore further
in the next day or so. How interesting to see a part of the park
closed off to the general public and little used. What fun to
explore a part of the original design of the park, now disguised
behind the only entrance to it with an exit do-not-enter sign.
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| such good friends at Tiny's Bar Gail Hanley took the pic. |
Well it’s off to “Tiny’s” bar
and restaurant to join up with my Desert Trails friends.... Average
food, good beer and great company.
The Saguaro Cactus
- The Saguaro grow very slowly, only about an inch or two each year for the first 6 to 8 years.
- It can take 70 years before they grow arms
- They reach a mature height of 40 to 50 feet in about 150 years
- The tallest may reach 75 feet in height
The world's largest Gem and Mineral
show has started here in Tucson with multiple venues throughout the
city and convention center. It goes on for a couple of weeks. It
has become so popular that one of the block long enclosed tents on
opening day (25 Jan) had a line two blocks long waiting to get
inside.
A walk through Kings Canyon
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| the return trip took me through the center of the canyon floor |
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| a CCC built restroom, no longer used |
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| the old mining road along the east side of the canyon |
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| the old mining road along the east side of the canyon wall |
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| this cactus is well over 100 years old and at least 40 to 50 feet high |
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| the return walk the the center of the canyon |
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| Native Indian petroglyphs are everywhere out west |
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| before written language, there were symbols and pictures |
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| during monsoon season, water will cascade down these walls |
Distance traveled: 9.9 miles (twenty
minutes)
Staying on the west side of town, I’ve
moved over to the casino parking lot for 4 nights. It’s been nice
meeting up with fellow Rv-ers in the Tucson area. From dinner
parties, playing Mexican Train, happy hour and even taking in a
movies with the guys. We saw the western movie “We are all
Hostiles”. Lots of killing but appropriate for the type of film,
portraying the many mistakes man makes and of course the deaths that
accompany it. Hopefully we will learn from it all one day.
Well it’s a usual sunny day here in
Arizona, refreshing mid 70’s and evening temps down the 45-50
degree range. Enjoy the day....
more pictures:
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| a stillness comes around sunset |
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