RV'ers Beware! We've NEVER Experienced Troubles Like This Finding a Campsite

we almost couldn't squeeze by them yeah so they were basically taking up the whole Road they had all the doors open so it was almost like you had to stop but there's no way we were stopping in this situation it was that sketchy of a situation it was pretty sketchy it's travel day and it's raining I think Louis and I got the good end of this deck would you say [Music] are you feeling lucky today oh yeah first come first serve Gilbert Ray Campground by Saguaro National Park [Music] thank you [Music] foreign we find out if we get a spot or we don't get a spot I hope we do there's a few people leaving right now 11 o'clock is checkout it's 10 41 so uh I think we got a good chance it's Monday it's the day after the Super Bowl nobody goes camping on Super Bowl Sunday right no turn left then you will arrive at your destination no daytime picnicking paid campers only hopefully that will be us it's beautiful back here so our backup plan is if we can't get a camp spot we're at least gonna try to use their dump station hopefully pay to use that and then we can go to the boondocking spot that's 15 minutes away just ask if they have first come first serve available yeah or anything available okay well we'll find out that was a little too quick but we got a map we did not get a spot they gave away their last spot half an hour ago and the people were here an hour and a half ago and we cannot dump here oh really they have limited septic oh wow so I got this information on dump stations yeah we'll have to hit one of these and then this is other campsites in the area if we wanted to go to an RV park of course her first question was do I have a reservation and when I said no her face dropped hmm did it oh well it's always good to have some options and as rvers we always have options and that's kind of why we wing it a little bit because we don't need to really you know have these six month reservations like yeah we're kind of bummed we didn't get into Gilbert Ray here but we knew that was pretty much a 50 50 shot you knew it was a hot Park to get into now what I didn't expect to happen was that they won't allow us to use their RV dump that was a twister Barrel yes and supposedly they have small septic system up here which is understandable it's kind of in an interesting location really there's not that many dump stations around for twenty dollars there's a dump that's five miles back the way we came and the boondocking spot is the other direction about a 25 minutes so so that's one option and then we're kind of just kicking stuff around we haven't checked out Harvest host for a while so we got on the Harvest host and one of the places we stayed uh two years ago yeah it must have been a while ago because it was in the van so what year did we sell the van in it might have been three years ago but at El Pius RV park and it's like this eclectic we have a video that we did on it and it was a really really cool place it is a cool place but what's crazy about it is that they have full hookups there and it's like hotel rooms plus RV sites plus airbnbs remember they had little tiny houses and airstreams and things like that it's gonna be raining all day so like you know heading out to a dirty uh middle of the desert boondocking spot doesn't sound that fun right now so that's I think the decision yeah [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign well here we go attempt number two to get into Gilbert Ray Campground right by Saguaro National Park and uh we got skunked the first time yes big skunk big goose egg but I think we got there at like 11 o'clock yeah we were coming from hours away so uh now we're coming from 20 minutes away yep and we're gonna be there at 8 15 right after they open up and hopefully we're gonna get a spot I'm feeling more lucky today than I did the other day yeah I think so in Tucson there's been this little cold snap it snowed it hailed now it's freezing it's 28 degrees there's Frost and freeze on everything it's not the ideal time to go camping if you're local just stay home it's freezing right so we're hoping that that's gonna you know create some extra spots inside the park [Music] thank you how are you feeling I'm feeling lucky yeah we're definitely here way earlier there's a chance that somebody got here 18 minutes before us so that's the only thing in the back of my mind like well somebody could have got here earlier I'm just thinking that cold weather is gonna definitely deter people from coming out it's so cold it was a deep freeze warning last night effective until this morning so I think you're right about that where it might just want to make people not do anything yeah it's no fun to tent camp when it's 28 degrees in the desert oh wow through that many people wait No Vacancy was this sign here last time yeah is everybody like waiting for him to get up and do you want to jump out and I'll just pull around the back yeah do they not open till 8 30. I don't know [Music] well that was a bust bust number two we were number eight on the waiting list we got here at about 15 minutes after eight yeah they don't open till nine and the first person got here at like six yeah so when we drove in we were automatically discouraged because there was a crowd of people standing yeah which I mean there could easily be 10 people leaving today so you know it could have been an easy thing but what we found out when the ranger finally showed up was there was only a possibility of five sites that were opening up today three were for sure leaving and then two were a maybe so even if we were number four and five it was still a maybe and we also discovered it was a little wonky stuff them because there's no numbers there's no tickets you really have to rely on your memory for who was here in which order and it was kind of interesting to watch that when the ranger was asking who was next we were on the sideline waiting because we knew we weren't like the first five but it got a little dicey when for spot number four spot number five we're trying to claim their spot in line it was a pretty weird people were standing way over in one area in the parking lot everybody else was lined up you know kind of around the ranger station which makes sense but but there was people kind of like all over and um yeah when you're coming three hours before opening I think it makes sense to just kind of stand in line and yeah we didn't get it I am for that woman who showed up number one that's ambitious we are not that ambitious and then you gotta like get you know it's one thing if you can just sit in your van in the parking lot like take a number right away but you got to stand in line there to claim your spot so anyways we're gonna now head out to that BLM land that is is just west of Saguaro National Park I think maybe like 15 minutes and if we want to come back each morning and try to get in here we can but we'll kind of see how good the BLM spot is and you know we don't need to be in this park we just thought it'd be kind of fun to be staying here foreign [Music] [Music] what I was expecting [Music] camping for 14 days well this is West Manville BLM outside of Ironwood National monument and I'm pretty disappointed so far it's close to the park but it's just it's just straight down this desolate Road into a parking lot um definitely probably buying for a night or two but totally yeah it's not somewhere I'd want to stay for a long time we're looking for somewhere that we can set up for a full week because we have fresh tanks and we're ready to be somewhere that has good walking and good trail running yeah because the place we just left did not and we need to get some miles in sometimes the parking lot's okay depending on what's around you know to do and things like that but this is kind of it's not that far away but it's not that close to anything either it's kind of just a parking lot in the middle of and it doesn't have the heebie-jeebie vibe so it's not like a bad place it's just not what we want and I think that we're being kind of picky because it's 9 43 a.m so that means the world is our oyster if you're not happy with it here right now we have time we could travel across all the way across Tucson and go some wherever we want to go we could go to another BLM spot um we could go to a different RV park like we really have options because of the time yeah this is 443 then we'd stay we probably have to stay the night I don't know I don't know what it is it's it's just not where I really want to stay um there's no recent reviews on this place either the reviews are kind of older they're all decent reviews actually some of them were kind of weird but um I think a lot of people come out here for ATVs and and trail riding and things like that and there's two people out here right now a van and a pop-up trailer so yeah there's plenty of space yeah what do you think you wanna I wanna sit here for a minute and just think about it you want to let the situation sink in for a little bit yeah just think about it [Music] well we decided to leave that little BLM spot wasn't giving me the best Vibes after a while and something weird actually just happened to us that it was probably one of the weirder things that that has happened and as we were sitting there we heard a car come close to the cul-de-sac that we were at and it did like this four point turnaround right before it got into the cul-de-sac which wasn't that weird but kind of weird because normally if you're turning around you're going to go into the cul-de-sac and just do a loop-de-loop and turn around so they kind of did a deliberate like stop before they got in there and did this weird like 10 point turn to get out and we left maybe five minutes after that maybe 10 I'm not sure and as we're driving out we see that same car pulled over on the wrong side of the road with all of the doors open and a guy was as we were driving by walking around from the driver's side to the passenger side where there was a female in the passenger side and Chris said she could see him we were gonna drive by because this was you know The Feelers were going off it was a sketchy situation very what makes it extra sketchy is we pass to the car on the way in doing the exact same thing on the other side of the road about a mile down yes so yeah I knew that the car we already knew that this car was out there and they were acting a little suspicious so we think they were trying to like flag us down for either to like ask for money or you could Chris said she could tell that there was some drugs involved in the situation I could um so and it seemed like they were trying to lure people for help and maybe they really needed help but in this case where you know we're always aware of our surroundings and that's something that like Aaron is really good at training me to be super observant yeah and so we noticed this car three times and we knew the car was working so we knew it wasn't like their car was broken down we literally saw the car driving around just fine and it was it was just a little bit scary yeah and they were kind of pulled over on the other side of the road but we almost couldn't squeeze by them yeah so they were basically taking up the whole Road they had all the doors open so it was almost like you had to stop but there's no way we were stopping in this situation it was that sketchy of the situation it was pretty sketchy and this is one of the things that we're always cautious about when we're near major cities just because there's more trouble near major cities there's just no way around it there's more people there's more people yeah and people are always like oh is it scary out in the BLM land in the middle of nowhere and really it's it's less scary out there because there's less people but the closer you get to these big cities there's more people in less recreational campers so when you go to a place you can tell when somebody's there to either hike bike camp you know as opposed to somebody just living there for whatever reason so uh so I'm glad we left yeah it was and if it's if this is happening at 10 15 in the morning yeah I mean imagine what it's like at 10 15 at night yeah it didn't sound like a great area the reviews were they were positive but they were old there wasn't a review for like two years three years maybe so um you know it was worth it to check it out and see but really the area just didn't offer enough for us there was no hiking no walking trails it was just a parking lot and you know a bunch of fields so for us we're gonna we're gonna try something else and we're gonna head in back into town a little bit and try one of these cheaper RV parks for dry camping and see if they have a dry camping spot um right by a bunch of trails that that we can hike and run on you know the beauty of some Trails it sounds really good right about now yeah I need some peace and some Serenity after that weird situation oh foreign came back with paperwork yes some paperwork we are not getting skunked at this time okay Diamond Jay's RV Park dry camping it's normally 16 a night I asked for a discount for the week Winky Winky Winky Winky 15 a night oh you got it from 16 to 15. yeah to stay for the week and they don't have a dump station or anything like that so they don't on the 21st we can drive through to the pull throughs and use the site to dump and fill up on water and I paid 15 for that so trail system oh yeah that's why we're paying the big bucks to be here yeah we needed the desert Trails we needed some running and we're like 10 minutes from Louie's birthplace and we're 10 minutes from Saguaro National Park and so we're gonna contact the breeder and see if she wants to see the moon or later yeah 120 bucks for seven days and no sketchiness we're not gonna get robbed it does feel good you know that's something to say again normally we wouldn't pay this but being in a big city tend to be a little bit more selective on where you're going yeah yeah we tried a few spots and this is it so let's go [Music] [Music] [Music] well we landed we set up and I really really like it here I took Louie on a little walk everybody was super friendly there's lots of doggies here and I'm really excited to hit the trails right in the backyard and we got a really nice um little private spot here private it's surrounded by prickly pear there's a little bit of Highway noise but I don't think they'll bother us there's no amenities but the lady in the office is selling homemade egg rolls and I've been craving some good egg rolls for a long time I might buy some of those for us while we're here that might be my big splurge Louie [Music] Louis needs a big walk two days without a big walk I know rough life with our sight having no hookups at all our 200 watt Rich solar briefcase came in pretty handy they sent this out to us for review and so far we're enjoying all the extra power it provides review video coming but the real star of the park truly was the dozens of miles of well-marked trails with some of the best desert landscape we've ever seen this little Park might just be a spot we returned to every time we're visiting Tucson thank you everyone for watching today's video be aware of your surroundings out there while boondocking and safe travels to you [Music]

Channel: Irene Iron Travels

Views: 123,116

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Id: YHrMb_Ja_xw

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023