theboondork's RV blog

challenges? Enemy Or best friend?

1/3/2024

Click the pics, it's good for you.

I ran out of spray paint so all the pictures today are black-and-white.

I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with my loss of the Pima County Fairgrounds as a central point of my travels during the winter. The weird thing is I still have the ability to attend the events at the Pima County Fairgrounds; I've just lost the desire to camp there.

The different events, such as the rodeo and the horse events, have always been free, and I can drive into the fairgrounds during those events, park near them, watch them all day, and then leave the fairgrounds. After considering this, it appears my only problem is not having a place to camp near the Pima County Fairgrounds.

I looked up boondocking areas on the east side of Tucson on the Internet where the Pima County Fairground is, and found one Interesting place called Colossal Cave Park, which has a first come, first serve boondocking campground for $15 a night, which I will look into when I leave Tombstone and get to Tucson. But, since $15 a night at the Colossal Cave is half of what it costs at the Pima County grounds, will there be any savings worth mentioning after paying for the extra diesel fuel to go back and forth, not only to the Pima County Fairground but to Walmart and other shopping places I use when I'm staying at the Fairgrounds? I'll have to look over the situation when I get there.

Since the Tombstone Dry Camping RV Park doesn't have a weekly or a monthly rate, I've just been paying for one day at a time, allowing me to leave whenever I want, which is great for me since I seldom know when I want to go until I wake up in the morning anyway.

I bought my granddaughter a birthday present yesterday; her birthday is next week. Being on the road, I wonder what I would do without Amazon. I push a couple of buttons on the computer, and a day later, a birthday present is sitting on my daughter's front porch. Before Amazon came along, jobs like that got done, but they were a huge, time-consuming hassle.

Theboondork

Nicest guy in the world but he'll kill you in a New York minute.

About as close as you'll ever get to see the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday walking down the streets of Tombstone.

The Birdcage Theater. A saloon, a gambling establishment, a brothel, and yes even a theater.

6 Comments

Larry Worsham

1/4/2024 05:39:42 am

I don't know much about the area. Saw these sites for the area. There ae several you tube video's about boondocking in area.

Boondocking GPS:
Walmart: 32.185520298999876, -110.95414235821372
Snyder Hill BLM: 32.15467445662302, -111.11556846958426
Forest Service 184 Road: 31.698505586418285, -111.01010446691625
Ironwood Forest National Monument: 32.43663225597927, -111.46316593492273

Happy Hunting and Safe Travels!

Tom

1/4/2024 07:35:52 am

Thank you for the suggestions Larry, I'll check them out as soon as I get a chance, right now I'm heading to the Walmart in Benson to pick up some groceries.

Just glancing at some of them I recognize them as being too far away from the Pima County Fairgrounds, and the cost of the fuel, and dealing with the traffic wouldn't be worth the effort.

Tucson is not a very big town but its just big enough to have a traffic problem during rush hours in the mornings and afternoons. And morning and afternoons is when I would need to transition from my boondocking area to the fairground events, and horse people start doing their thing pretty early in the morning... apparently horses wake up at the crack of dawn.

Thank you for the suggestions; I will give them a thorough going over later today, especially the boondocking areas I've never seen before.

Tom

1/4/2024 01:33:29 pm

Ran across them as I was poking around this am....lot of comments on boondocking in the area as places being over crowded. Good Luck in your search.....

1/4/2024 03:08:25 pm

Thank you, Larry, I appreciate the recommendations. The Pima County Fairgrounds is about 10 miles east of Tucson, so any boondocking spots west of Tucson would cost too much in fuel to go back and forth to the fairgrounds. It's a tricky situation and yes $30 a night is a ridiculous amount to pay for boondocking, but if boondocking is more than 20 miles away from the fairgrounds, the cost of fuel and the hassle of the drive isn't a tremendous savings over the cost of boondocking at the fairgrounds.

I have thought about the idea that most of the events I go to are two day events such as the rodeo, and barrel racing events, except the big barrel racing event, the one near the end of January and its a three day event. So I could go to an event on Saturday during the daytime, spend the night at the Fairground, watch the event on Sunday, and then leave.

That way, I've only stayed at the fairgrounds one night, but I will still have to find a place to boondock before I go to the event and after I leave... Maybe I should find something else to do that's entertaining and doesn't require much money or a lot of thinking. I don't do well when there's a lot of thinking involved.

Tom

Linda

1/4/2024 01:27:56 pm

If you are going to be at the fairgrounds all day every day it doesn't much matter where you park overnight. It looks like there's a Walmart just 3 minutes up Houghton from the fairgrounds.

1/4/2024 02:47:13 pm

Yeah Linda, that's the Walmart I shop at when I'm staying at the Pima County grounds, and there's a Popeyes in the same parking lot. Unfortunately, Walmart has no overnight parking signs in the parking lot. And since Tucson is a big tourist area, and having spent a fair amount of time running around Tucson it wouldn't surprise me if the campground owners Association hasn't gotten laws passed making it a no no to park overnight in random places. That's one of the beauties of having a stealth van, you can park most anyplace that's open for 24 hours.

Tom

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challenges? Enemy Or best friend?

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