Snowbirding Magnus Style, Day 7

Monday Nov 10

Destination: Catalina State Park, near Tucson. It was a very short drive, as planned, so we had to kill time. We dawdled around the KOA, eating their breakfast which was good but it took a long time to get our food. Then I took Molly for a second walk and we ended up leaving pretty close to eleven.

Although it turned out that the KOA check-out time was 12. No matter, but it’s annoying when the time I looked up doesn’t match the time on their printed document.

 

 

 

 

Sights from the KOA before we left:

 

 

We stopped at a rest area to waste more time. We needn’t have--the navigator app took us off I-10 and a long way through the heart of Tucson. Maybe not actual downtown, but not far from it. Eleven or twelve miles of stop and go traffic lights with heavy traffic. On a Sunday!

But the arrival at the park was lovely. It’s a gorgeous state park, with big sites, lots of vegetation although of the desert variety (prickly and sparse), and  well-marked roads. There weren’t a super big lot of campsites in the two campgrounds, which may explain why it fills up so frequently. According to the signage, our campground B was full for both Sunday and Monday. For Sunday I can believe it but on Monday I would have guessed it at 1/3 full or less.

Still,  plenty of room for us. Our pull-thru site was near the edge of the campground which was what I typically choose, all else being equal. If there’s a site near the edge, then I can walk Molly without having to pass by a lot of neighbor sites with chances of free-roaming dogs.

By the way, I haven’t seen a single one of those so far. All dogs are leashed or tied.

It was about 85 degrees in the afternoon when we arrived, which felt good while sitting but was a little too hot for active exercise. But we went walking anyway. There are quite a few trails in and around the foothills of the Catalina Mountains, so we drove the Jeep down to the trailhead (common to several of the trails) and took the “birding loop”. Not many birds, but a lovely trail. It went across the wash of a dry creek, then gradually up hill and around. At one point there were steps and it went up rather precipitously, but not to an especially scenic view or anything. Just nice.

 Saguaros all over!  Most  of them seemed mature with lots of arms; I saw very few young ones. Hope that’s not a bad sign. I did eventually see a Phainopepla, a cardinal-like bird of the desert; all black with a crest. They seem very common here.  And a few  house finches. And one white-rumped woodpecker, but I couldn’t tell if it was a Northern Flicker or a Gilded Flicker. The underwings seemed orange—so was it a Northern Flicker with red underwings that looked orange or a Gilded flicker with yellow ones that looked orange? Yeah, you guess.

 

But it was still a nice walk with amazing mountain views. And soon enough it was time to go back to camp, fire up the charcoal, and cook Ed’s barbequed chicken. I had leftover shrimp and Molly had dog food. Poor Molly.