Tucson arrived 8 hours later like an old friend. We knew this town. Tucson is the legit west … cacti and desert. Passing up the known for the new, we ignored the security of Davis Monthan Air Force Base and worked our way west out of town to an obscure county park in the foothills of the giant Saguaro Cacti.
Weary and road worn after days of thunder storms, frozen nights and drab budget motels, the No Vacancy sign hit like a gut punch. It may have been an obscure county park, but it was apparently well known. We never had a chance. The last first come first serve camping site had been taken at 6:30 that morning. To make matters worse, a nasty cold had taken hold and Eric was popping Motrin like Tic Tac candies. We made our way to an area on the map that an overland blog said supported BLM camping.
Winding our way out of the mountains, we found the Bureau of Land Management public land at the intersection of two major highways. On one side of the road, a make-shift un-housed peoples camp sprawled. On the other side of the road in a strip of litter strewn no-mans land, Class A RV’s were pulled off the side of the road parked randomly among the scrub. Yep, this was it. Home.
The wind was picking up so just getting the REI Grand Hut 4 staked was problematic. Using the F250 for wind blockage, we anchored the tent with every tie down that we had. The wind howled but the tent held. Old Class A RV’s surrounded our puny tent as 18 wheelers roared down the adjacent road. Sue us if we opted to get some Chinese take-out rather than fire up the stove.
It is hard to separate the hallucinations from the fever from the reality of camping in a highway median. The tent shook from 25 mph winds and the air was filled with the sound of big block V-8s opening up on the highway. Or maybe that was a dream. All we knew was that the Mickey D’s 3 miles down the store opened at 5 a.m. We just had to make it till then.
At 5 a.m. we broke camp in the pitch dark. It was hard to remember if we had slept. The axe that Eric had brought in to the tent as a defense to any unwanted intrusion had not been used. It was enough that we had survived. This time we would not arrive 12 hours too late at that county park. A coffee and egg muffin behind us, we drove in the dark back up to the county park to be the first in line.
Except we were not the first in line. We were number 5 in line behind a line of folks who had reserved sites at the park and were camped at the park but were looking to transfer into first come first serve to gain an extra 7 days. Did you ever have the feeling that the game was rigged? One site was due to open for sure. 5 was a stretch. Our option if we failed to land the coveted fifth spot was to return to post apocolyptic BLM land at the intersection of Mad Max and Dawn of the Dead. We began to realize why people booked a Carnival Cruise for their 10th anniversary.
