Sunday January 14, 2024 - Gilbert Ray Campground day 4

Deb again. Yep, you guessed it, another clear and sunny day. I made steel cut oats in our instapot along with English muffins for breakfast. Again, quite decadent to have power at a campsite that enabled me to plug in a toaster and an instapot.

Carmen had a connection with a new sculpture exhibit in Tucson, so we decided to check that out. All of us (dogs too) loaded into the two trucks to make the drive into the city. We arrived at the sculpture park only to learn that the exhibit was closed on Sundays. We walked around the park and got a glimpse of the sculptures, and also checked out the horse show and a dog show that was happening in the same large park.

Carmen and Lou opted to head downtown to walk around (it was Lou’s first visit to Tucson), and the rest of us returned to the campground. After lunch John and Dave decided to see about a tour of Old Tucson (right near the campground), and Deb and I decided to hike the Brown Mountain Trail with the dogs. The campground borders the Tucson Mountain Park, which has a vast number of trails to explore. As Deb and I were walking through the campground to the trailhead Dave and John returned, saying they’d been shut out of a tour of Old Tucson since the tour was already sold out.

Deb and I continued on the trail, and it was so beautiful. The trail is a 4 mile loop (although we had to tack on additional mileage to reach the trailhead from the campground) that climbs steadily up a hill to a ridge, eventually reaching the Brown Mountain summit before looping back down through lower elevation. The loop took longer than we’d anticipated and the others were a bit concerned about our whereabouts, but we made it back to the campground by 5:30 with 2 very tired dogs and all was well.

John and I had made sloppy joes and coleslaw for dinner, and we’d left the sloppy joe mix heating up in the crockpot all afternoon. After some time around the firepit and dinner at Dave and Deb’s we were all ready for a good night’s sleep.

95 nights in the van