>Introductiongilray_jan08_intro.htmlgilray_jan08_intro.htmlshapeimage_5_link_0
 
One of the nice things about Gilbert Ray Campground in the Tucson Mountain Park is that it’s very close to Tucson, and only about a 45 minute trip from our house! The park is operated by Pima County and is located off McCain Loop Road which takes off west from Kinney Road between Old Tucson and the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. You cannot tow a trailer or drive an RV over Gate’s Pass the road that goes over the Tucson Mountains becasue it is too winding and narrow...so take that route when you don’t have your trailer in tow...there’s a wonderful view of the western valley from the summit. With Gate’s Pass not being an option, you either have to go north or south of the Tucson Mountains to get to Gilbert Ray. Even if you are coming from the north on I-10, the easiest route it to take is Ajo Road (pronounced “AH-ho”) west from I-10 to Kinney Road, then north…it’s a relatively short trip through a beautiful desert. (Take the dips in the road slowly!) Coming to Gilbert Ray from the northern route around the north end of the Tucson Mountains takes you further out into the desert than the southern route does. If you’re looking for a good place to “set up camp” that’s near to Tucson and in a beautiful setting, this is the place…it’s $20/night for electrical sites…no water hookups, but water is readily available…showers, bathrooms and a dump station. Ground fires are not allowed but contained charcoal and gas grills are fine. Checkout tine is 11 am (wish it were 2 pm like the state parks). There’s a 7-day limit to stays. Old Tucson Studios is an old movie set with a long colorful histry that is now a tourist western town complete with staged gunfights and saloon shows…fun for kids and kids at heart. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a must-see for anyone at all interested in the desert. It’s a world-class natural museum that you will never forget…best to go in the earlier hours especially in the summer…lots to see…be prepared to walk. There’s a gift shop and cafeteria there so you can easitly make a day of it...in fact, it takes that long to do it properly. The Tucson Mountain District of the Saguaro National Park is nearby as well. (There are two parts to the Saguaro National Park...the one on the west side of the Tucson Mountains and the Ricon Mountain District which is on the east side of Tucson.) Back to Gilbert Ray. Each time we go there to camp we are struck with the beauty of the desert on the west side of the Tucson Mountains. There are sweeping desert vistas to the west and great close-up views of the rugged Tucson Mountains to the east… In the spring and summer watch out for critters…especially snakes in the spring and summer....and if you’re lucky you’ll hear the coyotes howling through the night. The desert is right on your doorstep in the park…they have done a great job of not disturbing the natural desert any more than necessary. And there is plenty to do...walks witin the park itself, Old Tucson, the Desert Museum and there are several good hiking trails and scenic drives in the area as well. And it’s close enough to Tucson to take advantage of attractions there, too. During the busier season, if the registration office is open, they will want to assign you a campsite based on the length of your rig. If you ask nicely to go select your site yourself they will probably allow this as long as you select a size-appropriate site. This is because the larger rigs need the larger sites. They’ll ask you to come back to the registration building once you’ve picked a site, but not to leave anything there until they OK your choice. When we arrived at Gilbert Ray for our MLK weekend getaway on Friday, 18 January 08, they did let us go and pick out own site. Our favorite loop is “A”…the vegetation is beautiful and the sites offer a little more privacy in this loop (but all the loops are acceptable). Just as we got back to the registration building after selecting our site, another Airstream was pulling in…with a closer look, we saw it was also a 19’ Bambi! As we entered the registration building together, the gentleman pulling the Bambi said, “I like your trailer!” I, of course, returned the compliment with a chuckle…he and I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of a pleasant new Airstream friendship…more on that later. We went back to our site and set up. We chose a site that allowed us to look west out the panoramic window in front to a great desert scape. We did the obligatory walk with the cockers, Annie and Sadie so they could sniff “points of intereset” and water a few lilies…they have both been here several times. We always wonder if they actually remember the places we’ve taken them…they may, but they never seem to act like, “Oh, it’s this old place again!” Rather, they are appropriately excited and thoroughly involved in sniffing their way along the walk in doggie bliss…such good little campers they are! We began settling in and setting up…after a while the guy from the other Bambi (whose site was on the opposite side of the loop) walked by and stopped to chat… We leaned he is a birder from N. Carolina and full-timing solo through the SW meeting up with various birder friends he’s met along the way. He’d been at Gilbert Ray the night before but had taken his Bambi into Tucson to Oasis RV Center (our local Tucson Airstream dealer) for some warranty work on his furnace—as the nights were chilly in the desert—and to get on the internet to check email…and he was back to Gilbert Ray for a while longer, and scheduled to go back to Oasis later in the week for a little additional work…He said he really liked Gilbert Ray and said he’d be through here again. It was a pleasant meeting…we all thought it was great that we both had 2006 19’ Bambis…his is a CCD and ours is a Safari SE, which means they have different interior decors, but other than that they are they same. We had a nice, relaxing Saturday with several walks in between relaxing…great cell and air card connections and TV reception, too…what more could we ask? (Well…camp fires would be nice!) On one of our walks, we stopped by to chat a while again with our new friend, Chan. We got to talking about all things Airstream and the we exchanged hints and experience on things like tires, batteries, solar panels…you know…“trailer talk.” He had been impressed with Oasis, and we shared our positive experience with them. Seems when he bought his Bambi back at home, the dealer hardly did anything for him, not even a walk-through to make sure he knew how to operate everything....and then he was on the road for an epic trip! That’s bad. Naturally, he had some questions about certain aspects of the trailer...we here able to help out with some since we basically had the same trailer…and when we told him Oasis had given us a complete walk-through he said he was going to ask them to do that for him, too. A new Airstream friend had been made! We went back to our site and took up the important task of relaxing again. The next day we saw Chan making his way through the cacti and creosote bushes,cutting across the loop toward our camp site holding something to his head…as he got closer, we could see he had a towel to his head… He had fallen in his Bambi and hit the top of his head against the frig cabinet. Poor guy…we sat him down and took a look at the wound…it was a very nasty scrape, but it wasn’t a deep cut, but as scrapes to the scalp go, it had bled a lot making it look and feel worse than it actually was… Once he knew it was not going to require stitches, he went to shower and promised to come back so we could give him a little first aid. He did…took another look at it, cleaned it out and put on some Neosporin…it wasn’t too bad, but it was going to be really sore the next day. We insisted he hang out for a while to relax…we shared some cheese and crackers and talked some more. Inside our Bambi now, he was impressed with the slip covers and curtains Greg had made for our trailer… Chan’s sister had told him recently that he needed color in his life, so he began to think about perhaps doing something with his Bambi to brighten it up! He was inspired! We talked to Chan a few more times during the weekend…he was planning to head back into Tucson again on Tuesday for an appointent at Oasis, so we said our goodbyes and exchanged contact info thinking we might cross paths again at some point as he is hanging out in the southwest for a while longer. The next day when we got up, Chan’s site was empty...he was already gone. We packed up, dumped the tanks and headed home…we were so glad we had come to visit Gilbert Ray again…and to be reminded what a nice camp ground it is and how easy it is to get away, even if it’s not very far… And we made a new Airstream friend as well. That was not the last we’d see of Chan. He called a couple of days later to let us know he was still at Gilbert Ray and that he was coming to Tucson to take care of a few errands. He asked if he could stop by… “Of course!” we said. So the next day after he’d taken care of his errands, he came by our place… The Girls were very excited to see him! Chan said he’d been thinking more about the slip covers….he definitely wanted a new look for his Bambi and he asked Greg if he would help him out. Of course, Greg said he would, so we all talked about what might work for him and before you know it, a decor plan of action was born for Chan’s CCD. Greg was now in “mission mode” figuring out what to do for Chan’s curtains and slip covers…we knew it needed to go well in his CCD, which has white Formica cabinets and black/charcoal wood (rather than the natural wood colors in the Safari). One could see the wheels turning in Greg’s head! Click on the slide show button below to see pictures form Gilbert Ray, and at the end you can click on “Other Trips” to take you back to the trip list page. Enjoy! http://www.pima.gov/nrpr/places/gil_ray/index.htmlhttp://oldtucsonstudios.comhttp://www.desertmuseum.org/http://www.nps.gov/sagu/http://www.nps.gov/sagu/shapeimage_6_link_0shapeimage_6_link_1shapeimage_6_link_2shapeimage_6_link_3shapeimage_6_link_4