We rolled the dice on today’s campground and came out with a win. Our next set of reservations start Sunday, Jan 29 but I hadn’t come up with any for Friday and Saturday nights. I knew I would like to camp at Gilbert Ray Campgrounds located in the Seguaro National Park outside of Tucson, but they were fully booked when I started looking weeks ago. We had one opportunity and that was their FCFS (first come, first served) loop.
It was a beautiful day, and the road was in good shape most of the route. Apple Maps indicated our travel time around 2 hours and pretty much what it took us. Outside of Tucson, we started up an incline and the road narrowed and was bumpy. I was kind of worried that if we didn’t secure a site, we would need to travel back down this bumpy road to find a new campground.
Gilbert Ray Campgrounds is a Pima County managed campground but is located near the Saguaro National Park. It has great reviews, and the scenery is amazing. Upon arrival around 10:15am, we stopped at the front gate where a staff member told us there were 2 sites open in the FCFS loop. She told us to take a look at them and if one would work for us, it would be ours at 11:00am. We walked over to the loop and there was a similarly sized Airstream in site #1. It was a tight fit but since it worked for them, we knew we could, too. While waiting, I caught up on some work and Ron in finalizing our reservations, learned that this is an electric only site – not water hook-ups. They do have a potable water filling faucet, and after making our payment for 2 nights, we drove there to fill our tank. This was our first campsite where it was electric only, but it shouldn’t be an issue for us.
After getting our water tank filled up, we went back to our site and got backed in the tight squeeze with no problem. We decided to take the Campground hiking loop which was about 1.4 miles through the desert scenery. It was spectacular but we did not see any wildlife, birds etc. until we got back into the campground. Here on our way back we saw a hummingbird flitting around a cactus, then it flew up into a nearby tree. These trees have many branches and it made it difficult to get a good photo. It wasn’t until we got back that we realized the hummingbird was going to its nest in the tree and we captured a few photos of it sitting in the nest and determined it is the Costa’s Hummingbird. Females are rather drab in comparison to their male counterparts who sport a brilliant purple crown and throat. We were thrilled though to get a photo of the female sitting in her nest. Ron did see a hummingbird at our campsite when we first arrived and possibly there’s opportunity to get additional photos this weekend.
After grabbing a bite to eat we decided to travel to the Red Hills Visitors Center of the Saguaro National Park located about 5 miles from the campgrounds. With Passport book in hand, we secured our first cancellation stamp in the West region and bought a stamp to add to our collection. There is beautiful scenery around the Visitors Center with red hills covered in a forest of Saguaro cactus. We learned here that the Saguaro grow arms around age 75 and that many live to 200 years old, weighing up to 2 tons. Another interesting cactus is the Teddy Bear Cholla cactus that is named for its furry ‘cuddly’ appearance and is a densely spined plant, but the cactus spikes are sharp as glass and barbed like a fishhook.
There is a museum also located nearby we plan to visit tomorrow. This is part of the Sonoran Desert and today it was 62 degrees by mid-day. Tonight, the forecast calls for 38 degrees overnight and 65 tomorrow – wow, we are so excited!
2025 Airstream Travels 