Thursday Jan 11, 2024 - Bisbee to Gilbert Ray Campground

I had winterized the van when we last used it so we just needed to fill up with water (tank and toilet) and move everything in from our driveway. We live on a one way street and the van is too big to fit in our funky driveway (I think) so we put everything at the end of our driveway, pull the van up and shovel everything in. There are actually only three people living on our street so it’s never a problem blocking the street. The Home Depot stackable boxes have worked great, and the one we’ve named the “provision box” is our means of moving stuff into and out of the van.

This trip we’re camping with two other couples. Deb and Dave have a proper camper which becomes the meeting place since it can seat 6 around the table. Carmen is picking up her old Peace Corps friend Lou (who lives in Michigan) at the airport and then going straight to the campground. Carmen has a pull-behind toy hauler. The lows will be in the 20’s tonight and then warmer over the weekend so they both brought electric heaters since there’s power at our sites. We have the wonderful Webasto gas heater so we’re all set.

We’d planned that each couple would be responsible for one dinner, and the other night we’d go out to eat somewhere. The drive’s only about two hours long, so not too far. The wind was really howling today so it was a bumpy ride to Benson, and I had to weave around the tumbleweeds blowing across the road. We stopped in Benson at the Horseshoe Cafe for a late lunch, and at that point it was raining and very windy.

Tucson Mountain Park (in the vicinity of our campground) isn’t that far from Tucson, and to reach it you drive over a high narrow pass. Once you’re out of the city and hit the top of Gates Pass you’re in undeveloped desert beauty with saguaro and teddy bear cacti everywhere. By the time we reached the pass the wind had stopped, and it was beautiful weaving down the backside of the pass with the setting sun casting shadows over the mountains and cacti. What an entrance!

Gilbert Ray is a pretty large campground with power at each site and centralized water. They also have tent sites. Flush toilets but no showers or hot water. They did have dish washing / hair washing stations outside of a couple of the bathrooms with hot water. Once again, simple and just enough. The place is full.

Everybody unpacked and we spent the last warm rays of the sun outside of Dave and Deb’s around the propane fire ring we brought. No wood fires allowed. Carmen had made green chili which we enjoyed inside Dave and Deb’s camper and then turned in for the night.