Sonoran Desert Museum, Tucson AZ

We decided to spend one more night at the Casino Del Sol in Tucson boondocking and used that day to explore the Sonoran Desert National Monument  on the west side of town, often called the Tucson Mountain District. Having visited both the the eastern and western parts we can say without a doubt that we felt the western part was best and most scenic. There's a $10 entry fee per vehicle but since we have the America the Beautiful Pass (which is an annual pass for $80) it was free for us.

We took the Hohokam Road or Bahada Loop (an unpaved road) over to the Signal Hill trailhead. There is a really nice 3.5 mile loop trail there that few people seem to do as most come for the petroglyphs  found on the very short hike up to Signal Hill. We did hike up to Signal Hill to see the petroglyphs which are pretty cool and found great views of the Waterman Mountains and the assorted rocky hills. We saw a lot of spiral petroglyphs and few neat deer petroglyphs etched into the rocks along the top of the hill.

The desert plains below were covered with beautiful mature saguaros, mesquite, palo verde and ironwood trees along with a nice diversity of cacti. . After we left Signal Hill we took the Cactus Wren trail until it met the Manville Trail which looped back to our car. We enjoyed this hike that took us through a nice assortment of picturesque vegetation and we spotted several nice desert birds as well. The only negative drawback to the trail was that near the end of it we were hiking near the road and heard some traffic noise.

After we finished our hike we completed the loop drive. Since it was nearly 4:30 we headed over to the Justin D Diamond RV park where we stayed recently because some of our RV friends were still staying there (at least we hoped they were still there). As we pulled into the park we spotted their rig and Jeep so we stopped to say hello to our Packer friends, Roger and Lynn. Jerry and Terry were still there as well so the six of us sat around and had a happy hour.where we traded laughs, stories and simply enjoyed each others company. What a great day!

The next day we left the Casino Del Sol and headed east to Bisbee, Arizona where we planned to spend a couple of days. We checked into the Queen Mine RV Park which is $30.00 per night which is a little pricey for us but since we have been boondocking for the last three nights we planned to splurge a bit. After all this park is the only one in town and so close to town that campers are able to pretty much walk to town from the park so it is perfect for our short stay…

NOTE: We are leaving Bisbee tomorrow so I am a bit behind in the blog…