Last Stops in Arizona: Tucson, Benson & Willcox

It never fails to surprise me. We reach the end of another season, with more places left on our ‘must see list’ than we actually had time to visit.

And of course this winter is no different. We thought we’d be able to fill in more blanks this winter boondocking around the southwest. And maybe even return to some old favorites. But one by one, the weeks slip by and the draw across country speaks louder than our desire to explore more spots.

So after our delightful stay at Saddle Mountain, we continued our meander east. There were still a couple more weeks we could afford without making the drive to Florida feel too rushed.

Which worked out well, because we were taking the time re-write the 2016 Edition of The Mobile Internet Handbook, and still had a solid week of work left on it.

Tucson, AZ – Gilbert Ray Campground

There are camp spots around the country that have a legendary feel to them. Other social media sharing RVers have been there before, taunting us with their Instagram photos and blog posts.

We are sometimes reluctant to go to them. For one, can they live up to the hype? And two, certainly by now they’ll be so crowded that the magic is gone.

Gilbert Ray Campground in the Tucson Mountain Park, just to the west side of Tucson is just one such park. Surrounded by saguaro cacti in a pristine desert environment, and only about a 20 minute drive into the heart of the big city.

As our new folding electric bikes (e-JOE Epik SEs) we purchased at Metro Gnome in Tucson back in November where due for a tune-up and some minor warranty repairs (we will eventually share more about the bikes, our research, why we went this route and our experience with them) – our desire to check out Gilbert Ray Campground came to fruition.

We routed from Tonopah to Tucson via backroads south to I-8, successfully avoiding the sprawl of Phoenix.

Gilbert Ray is a first come first serve campground (no reservations accepted – our favorite kind!) with a strict 7-day limit. This means there’s a lot of turn-over and even during peak seasons odds are very good you can score a site.

To give us ourselves the best odds of scoring a SWEET site, we planned our arrival for a Sunday (when most weekend campers check-out – one of the tricks of the trade). Of course, we didn’t actually look at a calendar to realize it was technically a holiday weekend – and when we arrived mid-afternoon we were told there were only a couple spots left that could fit a motorhome as large as ours.

Serendipity however provided – as one of those last sites was huge and luscious. A perfect spot to plop down for a few days, concentrate on the book and run a few errands.

And that’s pretty much what our time there was like. Short hikes to keep active, lots of writing and a day of attending to errands. We appreciated the power, as temps in Arizona spiked to unseasonably warm requiring just a blast of AC in the afternoon.

Our lush feeling private porch.

Beautiful sunsets.

Cacti marching on Tucson

Can you see us?

Scoring a first come first serve spot over a weekend.

Gilbert Ray Campground didn’t disappoint and pretty much lived up to all of the expectations. There are some sweet sites, and there are some super tiny and packed in feeling sites. The front desk seems really skilled at assigning the ‘good sites’ first before packing folks into the smaller ones.

And they also seem to keep some big rig sites available for as long as possible.

We didn’t get out to explore any of the local attractions – such as the nearby museums. Heck, we didn’t even venture much out of the campground at all.

Focus was getting the book DONE (which, we didn’t do.. that would wait for the next stop).

But we would definitely return to Gilbert Ray. As far as developed campgrounds go, it’s just our style.

Benson, AZ – Return to SKP Saguaro Co-Op

We’ve been communicating with our dear buddies Nina & Paul of WheelingIt about their big (not so) super secret project going down this week in Benson.

The timing worked out wonderfully for the four of us to converge and get a little more time together this winter before our paths diverge for a while.

We visited SKP Saguaro on our pass through in November, and were really quite charmed with both the park and the concept of a Co-Op. So we were excited to return again and see it a second time.

Nina & Paul arrived before us and reported they had been in the temporary dry camping area for a couple days awaiting assignment into a spot, and to set our expectations accordingly. We delayed our arrival a day to let the heat pass a bit in anticipation.

We arrived, and as forewarned, the only spots available were dry camping. Which, in and of itself is not a problem – we’re dry camping pros.

But what is a problem is that the dry camping spots at the park are all on a pretty extreme incline, making leveling quite a challenge.

As it would be the last chance to see Nina & Paul for a while, we sucked it up. And thankfully, as the heat index dropped more folks moved on – and we were placed into a real site on our third day.

Our time with Nina & Paul was awesome as ever – always so much laughter. And it was good to also connect with other friends in the park.

Before we headed out, we left behind a deposit check to be placed on the ‘Hot List’ so that in the future we have the option of bidding on sites that become available at SKP Saguaro. We don’t imagine it’ll be but for a few years that we’re ready for such a move, but best to get ourselves in line for the possibility.

Moonrise

Happy Hour in 2016 on Jil & Tom’s porch (both buddies Nina & Paul and JP).

Ahhh.. space around us again!

And, while there – we got the book finally DONE!

We have the free PDF update out to our premium members, and will work this week on getting the public versions ready for sale on Kindle & iBooks. Print will come later after we get the proofs to approve. We’ll get an announcement out once the book is available – but it’s a pretty epic re-write.

Willcox, AZ – Becoming an Elk!

The Elks Lodge is a wonderful resource for RVers. Many of their locations across the country have RV Parking. Some just dry camping, and some more developed campgrounds. It really opens up the options, especially in places where they may be no other options.

It’s been on our bucket list to to navigate the process of becoming a member for a while. It’s tough as a traveler however, as there are multiple steps involved.

We started the formal process back in May in St. Louis, where Chris’ father and uncle sponsored him into the local chapter. Chris went through the interview, the required reading of his name at meetings and being approved. However, the last step – initiation – was more difficult to achieve.

Their dates for the ceremony and our travel schedule just never aligned.

We’ve been communicating with the Escapees Elks BOF group to locate lodges along our route that might have initiations more frequently that we could work into our schedule. We were just about to give up on it happening in the southwest.

That was until some kind folks in Benson found out about our situation, and arranged to make it happen for us and some other friends.

We all headed down to the Wilcox Lodge #2131, and made it all official like.

So.. we’re finally Elks, and stayed at their campground overnight.

Heading East

And so, yesterday morning we crossed out of Arizona officially ending our winter in the southwest. We are making miles east. Our goal is to get to Florida in late March or early April.

That should give us time to integrate in a couple of longer stays along the way (for sure we’ll be stopping in Austin for a bit to visit my brother).

But some down time along the way, in hopefully some new-to-us locations, is something we look forward to.

Cat Sitters in Florida? We need your help…

Once we get to Florida, we are ramping up for a 3-week non-RV adventure starting in late April.

We need to figure out logistics of where to park the bus, and someone to keep Kiki company.

If you might be able to help out – please be in touch.

This can range from us parking the bus nearby (maybe in the same park as another RVer in the area?) and someone checking in on her, to her staying in-home. She generally gets along great with dogs, and other cats can be hit-or-miss.

We’re pretty flexible on location, after all, our house has wheels.

Thanks a bunch!