Although it is not yet 2017, we started our explorations for our early 2017 travels today. We drove south down Oracle Road and through Tucson on our way to the eastern unit of Saguaro National Park. We have been here a couple times before but the scenery here just never quits being dazzling.
I am old and since I am, we now have a permanent old geezer’s pass for Federal parks and monuments that allows us free access. We showed the pass to the Ranger in the booth and he gave us the “move along” gesture. We rolled right onto the park’s 9-mile one-way loop road for another pass through this enormous cactus garden. Virtually all the plants here have formidable defenses, particularly the sharp, pointy kind.
We pulled off the road at almost every wide spot in the pavement, shut down the engine and listened for animal life. Initially we could not see anything moving but after we hung out for a while, we would start to hear a variety of birds singing and would get glimpses of little scurrying things speeding across the scarce clear ground between prickly forests. Strangely, we even spotted a squirrel and a woodpecker both perched in a scrawny ocotillo cactus just like good neighbors. The scenery here is spectacular.
After our slow pass through the east unit, we set the Garmin for the nearby Camping World which was inconveniently closed for the holiday that occurred yesterday. We need a new tank washer hose and some other stuff but I guess we’ll be getting them some other time.
We headed back to the Wishing Well RV Park and our dry, warm trailer. It is cold at night with no nighttime temperatures above 40 degrees since we got here. We love our electric heaters.
There are some pix available if you click here