We are at Gilbert Ray Campground near Tucson at the Pima County Tucson Mountain Park. It is a nice place. Different from others in some important ways, most of them good (for us).
For one thing, the stay limit is 7 days. Then you have to leave for at least 7 days. At other county parks we have stayed at, there is a 2-week limit for a specific site, so some people grab spots for the entire season and just move across the campground every two weeks. As a result, there is a whole different kind of camper here--significantly fewer camperzillas and a lot more pickup slide-ins like ours, and a lot more bikes attached to them.
There also isn't water hookups, so that makes it less attractive to the camperzillas that need water for showers, dishwashers, washing machines, etc.
There is also the very best recycling we have seen anywhere. Thumbs up!
The downside, a minor one, is that the entire campground isn't open, for reasons not clear to us. And the loop that is closed (loop A) seems to be the best one in terms of space between camping sites. We are planning on asking one of the hosts about this, as the "season," as far as we can tell, has started. Is the campground busier at other times of the year, we wonder?
One of the attractions in the area is something called Old Tucson.
Apparently it was a western movie lot where some 300 films and TV episodes were filmed, including the John Wayne movies McClintock and Rio Bravo (which featured, interestingly, in lead roles two major league singers: Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson). And two of my favorite non-Wayne westerns: 3:10 to Yuma and Clint Eastwood's best film: The Outlaw Josie Wales.
For our first hike here we planned on going by this place to see the old movie sets.
It was a nice 5 mile hike in the flat desert, before we got to Old Tucson.
RIP-OFF ALERT!
The entrance fee for Old Tucson is $17! And something felt wrong. So we didn't go in. We got a brochure about it which described such things as panning for gold, stagecoach rides, gunfights, can-can dancers, horse rides, etc.
After we returned to our camper we looked it up on Wikipedia. Well, the place had a huge fire in 1995, and it appears as if the sets were destroyed. So what it has turned out to be is a small amusement park, built on the site of the old movie studio. Glad we saved our money.
The next day we did a nice 5.5 mile hike--Brown Mountain.
Found this. Do you think it might have been John Wayne's beer can? I have kept it just in case and will display it prominently in our living room, subject to Vicky's approval of course.
Brown Mountain Hike:
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