Saguaro West & Old Tucson Studios

Part of the outdoor model train layout here at Rincon Country RV Resort.
This RV park is huge with many holiday cabins as well as full time Rvers, a sort of Butlins  but it's very clean, tidy and has loads of facilities including a very good sized library and hey they need a new librarian...ummm should I apply ??
We only stayed here 2 nights but we met and chatted to some really friendly lovely people......

Our main reason for the move over from our previous campsite is that we wanted to visit the other half of the Saguaro National Park which is on the west side of Tucson, it seemed a bit daft to keep going back and forth along the I-10 when we need to pass this way when we go to Phoenix.....

Again the size and majesty of the saguaro is breath-taking.....
The SNP West has a much denser "population" of saguaro more like a forest in places. although never where  I could get a good camera angle to back up this statement.....

We drove the loop road to various viewing spots and hiking trails., this time the loop road is gravel and although ok for cars, 4 wheel drive not needed, it was quite rough in places and Bradda Ed did shake his little booty ! Yes our  Hawaiian mascot is still attached to the dash......

This time we hiked several short trails to see various aspects of the park,  no loop trails to follow hence several short ones .....

One of the features of the west park is the Ancient Petroglyphs at Signal Hill,  the weather is taking it's toll of them and some have almost disappeared.....

Just a short hike from the car park to the Petroglyphs....we had a good chat with a ranger while here and apart from learning interesting facts about the park and plants we asked about what looked like reservoirs in the distance when entering the park......Tucson used to be the only US city entirely reliant on under ground water sources but the city has grown so much that they now divert water from the Colorado River into these reservoirs......one of the plants she showed us was the creosote bush which smells much nicer as a plant !!!!

Next stop Old Tucson Studios....
A fun place to spend a couple of hours,  I even got to ride the train !

Unlike Tombstone, Old Tucson is entirely a film "studio" all or at least the vast majority of John Wayne films  (I personally can't stand his films) were made here plus classics like the Magnificent Seven and several Western TV series....

High Chaparral.......
We caught an old episode of that last trip along with Bonanza,  oh dear not sure what was more sad the acting or the fact we watched them !!!

Our tour rounded off by a very yummy ice-cream........

Camp Harris.....and time for a beer.... 

Hitched up and Back On the Road Again, this time on along the I-10 then I-17 to the north of Phoenix

Twin Peak Mountain.......does anyone remember Twin Peaks the very odd TV series, the 80's I think it was.....nothing to do with this Twin Peaks but my mind wandering.....

We are now at Black Canyon City in probably the worst campsite we have ever stayed in apart from Biloxi MS but  it is serving it's purpose for easy access to West Phoenix.....
We needed to sort out storage for our return home at the end of the month, YorkieMan had a list of possibles but we luck out and the first one we visit which was his number one choice is perfect......covered storage (very hot summers here) security, all the utilities, a good price plus they will trickle charge the truck once a month for 3 days at no charge, the owners live on site, there's a shuttle to the airport and the access is very straightforward for when we are towing our home on wheels.......job done :)
The weather for the 2 days we are here is perfect warm/hot and blue skies but there's a storm a-coming and we didn't get out of Dodge quickly enough and now here for at least another day......we are heading for Camp verde farther up the
I-17, we have to pass through an elevation of 5000 ft and although it's heavy rain and windy here it will be snow up there !!! Never mind we are self contained and have plenty of food and grog to last.........
For you rugby fans enjoy the weekend, hopefully we shall catch some of the games via our VPN .........what's the French for wooden spoon !!!