Out of Our Rut: Casino del Sol Camping

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We knew there was more we wanted to see and do in the Tucson area but decided to head to a different camping spot. A day earlier, we had driven to the Tucson BLM camping area off of Highway 86 figuring this might work well for us. But when we drove around the area looking for a spot, we questioned whether we could safely drive the coach over some of the washed out areas plus there was rain in the forecast for the first couple days we would be there. Next we headed over to the Casino del Sol which allows free overnight parking with no real time limits. The lot was reasonably level, well lit and had easily over 100 rigs of all sizes setup there. We had stopped to talk with a couple and they mentioned it was safe and quiet as well.

The drive from the KOA to the casino was a whopping 12 miles and since I wanted to fuel up the coach, we didn't even bother to hook up the car. We are finding the Kroger/Frys fuel card can be quite helpful especially when getting diesel for the motorhome. It can only be used for up to 35 gallons but that makes a big difference when filling up. It seemed odd to be driving the motor home and not seeing the car in the rear view camera and even made me momentarily question where I had lost the Jeep! We pulled in and found a spot that would work and setup "camp". We ended up spending 6 nights there and even met one of our neighbors in a 5th wheel that turned out to be a geocacher that had been out at Quartzsite when we were there.

Our "Camping" Spot at Casino

Another nice point about the casino is that it's less than 10 miles up to Tucson Mountain Park where that are countless trails and quite a few geocaches hidden. We ended up doing three days worth of hiking there while staying at the casino. One hike was on a day that was threatening rain but we decided to chance it. The trailhead is on Hal Gras Rd on the southern edge of the park near the Ironwood Picnic Area. The terrain is fairly flat with some undulations around areas of washes. We have done enough desert hiking by this point to realize that most trails are not very well marked. In areas where mountain biking is allowed, the trails seem to go every which way. We eventually make a nice loop of it and only get sprinkled on a couple times providing a very nice rainbow.

A "Crested" Saguaro

You Never Know What You'll Find Geocaching in the Desert

Lots of Saguaros

Our Desert Rainbow

Another very nice hike was one up Brown Mountain. The trailhead is near the entrance to the Gilbert Ray Campground - part of this county park. The trail heads north and overlooks the Sonora Desert Museum. We chose to go up the ridge trail to get the great views and find the geocaches hidden along the way. After lunch up top, we just turned around rather than taking the lower half of the trail. Ended up being about a 3 mile hike.

The View from Brown Mountain

Delicate Flowers and Saguaro

Looking Back Down Trail at Brown Mountain

Overlooking Sonora Desert Museum

One of the other places we wanted to visit is associated with the Pima Air and Space Museum. Having done a lot of other museums in the past several months, we really didn't want to do the museum per se, but there is an aircraft boneyard tour that takes you through the area where hundreds of old aircraft are stored in the dry heat of Tucson. We got there at mid-morning only to discover that all the tours for the day were sold out and from the sounds of it, one must get here fairly early in the morning to get tickets! After seeing the buses and realizing you are not allowed off the bus during the tour, we decided to skip this one. We drove around some of the perimeter roads outside the fence line and saw how many planes are here - apparently ~4400 of them!

With our boneyard plans kaput, we decided to head out a bit further and check out Saguaro National Park East. We drove the 8 mile Cactus Forest Drive stopping at various pullouts to soak in the exceptional views. We did a side trip up the dirt road to Mica View picnic area and did a couple mile hike along some desert trails there. Although we did not see a lot of wildlife, we did see a bird apparently feeding on some buds on a barrel cactus. Even though it seems like there are a large number of saguaros here, one pullout showed a picture from years earlier that showed even more.

View Along the Cactus Forest Drive

Leaning Cactus

Find the Bird in the Photo

Colorful Rock

We headed back to Tucson Mountain Park to do part of the Yetman Trail hike. It starts from the parking area on Gates Pass Road. Even if you don't do hikes here, the drive along this road is very beautiful. It is hilly, narrow at times, and full of curves and often has bicyclists so pay attention to more than the scenery. The trail goes up and over a saddle point between two of the mountains. The trail was in reasonable shape and a bit of a climb but not overly so. Round-trip was about 3.5 miles with some of that getting sidetracked to search for the occasional geocache. There were a fair number of people out enjoying the day as well and a couple of them with dogs. One of them didn't look at all like our dog Shelby, but it really made me miss having her as our hiking companion.