Catalina State Park near Tucson

We didn't have too far to go today so we took our time this morning. We stopped at the dump station on our way out and had to wait our turn. We wanted to make sure we had empty tanks and filled up our water tank as we figured we would be dry camping for a while.

We were on the road by 11 and drove less than 50 miles today. When we got to Catalina State Park, the Ranger told us that only a few sites were available in the non-electric loop. This park is Arizona's newest park and they do not accept reservations. We told him that was fine and he told us that if we were interested in moving to an electric site, he would let the Camp Host know. We told him we were. We proceeded to Loop A and were met by the Camp Host. She told us to select any site in the non-electric loop and to be ready to move by 8:30 tomorrow. We found this nice pull-thru site and didn't unhook since we will be moving to another site tomorrow.

We ate lunch and decided to take a walk around the park but first we had to meet the welcoming committee. We were greeted by two roadrunners. This is a picture of one of them. The one I was talking to just stood and listened to me; they definitely aren't afraid of humans. It was so darn cute. One of them was chasing down bugs and we heard the snap of his beak from several feet away. Soon they wandered off . . . we hope to see them again.

We decided to take a walk around the campground. We discovered that there are no bad campsites here at all. As we don't get to pick our site, it is nice to know that they are all very nice. We were on our way back to our site when we saw a Camp Host waiting in a golf cart. We were asked if we belonged to the Excel. We said we did, he said that there was an opening in the electric loop and they wanted us to move. Really??? We pulled in the slides, loaded up the chairs, raised up the levelers and we were on our way to Loop B.

We were escorted to our new site that is a pull-thru that is extremely long. Here is a shot of what our site looks like with the mountains behind. We definitely feel this has the "it" factor for us. Originally, we were only going to stay maybe 5 to 7 days but we signed up for the full two weeks. We are close to Tucson and even closer to groceries and other nice conveniences.

It didn't take us long to get all settled in. Even the MotoSat cooperated and locked on within 4 minutes. I couldn't believe it as it has been ages since it has locked on that quickly.

We just really like the view.

We have a large area between us and the site on our left. I told John that would be a good area to play ladder golf some time in the next two weeks.

The park has several hikes that we want to do and has a fair amount of roads for us to tool around on our bicycles. The bird feeders are out (bird seed and hummingbird) as is the bird bath. I told John he is a good nester. We also spotted our first hawk-a Cooper's Hawk while on our walk around the park. Yes, I think we are going to be happy here.