I want to start by saying this was an awesome trip partially because of this little gem of a campground right outside of the western section of Saguaro NP. For $20/night we had electricity and a nice big site. Electricity was a somewhat important aspect for this trip because it got pretty cold and we got a windy storm for about 4 hours. Electricity means that we could run an electric heater as much as we wanted! And we had our own mascot right on our site.
Also, in case you didn’t catch it, this National Park is in two sections about 35 miles apart. There is a section on both sides of Tucson. The eastern section has a great loop drive where you could get off and hike on decent trails. It seems as though the trails were either strenuous or relatively easy. Since I don’t do the hard hikes, we stayed with the easier hikes. There are no campgrounds within the park that aren’t backpacking in. So many Saguaro! Just like at JoshuaTree NP, there were “forests” of Saguaro! But also,the giants aren’t alone in their habitat,but rather many other cacti and desert plants are also there. Joshua Tree had the Mohave and the Colorado parts of the Sonora deserts, but the Saguaro is all Sonoran desert. It was surprising how much plant life there is in the Sonoran desert! The western section had less of a road to follow but some great wash areas to explore fairly easily.
We also went to the Arizona Sonoran Desert museum which was right down the road from Gilbert Ray. It was very nice although many of the animals were not up and about because it was pretty cold. It was the day after the 28F night! We met Jenny’s parents, Connie and Bob, there because this is one of their favorite places since they moved to Tucson. Tucson was an Ok town, but seemed to be rapidly growing and looked a lot like SoCal in places. They live on the edge of town however, and love it there. We had some great Mexican food with them also. There is something about being close to Mexico that seems to make the food better!
Overall, it has been enlightening learning about the differences in the American deserts. Even though the Saguaro is the American symbol of the desert, it really is only found in the southern parts of the Sonoran desert. Their size and very “cute” poses catch our imagination, I guess. Some of them are quite comedic!
