January 9, first day at colossal Cave

click the pics.

The Colossal Cave Mountain Park is certainly a beautiful place to be, but I'm up in the mountains in a canyon and as any mountain man knows cold air sinks into the Canyons and tends to stay there, so it's pretty cold at night, and chilly during the daytime.

I pulled into the Colossal Cave Park about 10 o'clock this morning, after stopping in Benson to top up a propane tank, and get a few things from the Walmart.

There was hardly anybody here, in fact I'm the only one in the campground. The lady at the gift shop that takes care of boondockers like me said nobody was here because it was too cold, I agreed it was cold, but the Colossal Cave is in the mountains and since I'm no flatlander, if anybody can take the mountain cold it's me.

It's a beautiful place, desert mountain scenery abounds. There's beautiful views in every direction and there's as many Saguaros as down the road at the Saguaro National Park, I'm surrounded by Saguaros. And since Saguaro cactus can't like the cold, I figure how cold can it get?


Where I'm boondocking is about 20 miles from the Pima County Fairgrounds. About 10 of those miles are fast and easy I-10, but the remainder of those miles is either slow going mountain driving, narrow roads, sharp turns, or driving through a small town with 35 mile-per-hour speed limits.

I'm planning on going to the rodeo at the fairgrounds this weekend, so I'll get a chance to see how long it takes to get there, and especially how long it takes to get back to the Colossal Cave campground because they have a gate that they lock up at 4 o'clock every afternoon and once they do that you can't get back in. So it will be imperative that I know how long it takes me to get back here from wherever I am.

So I figure that with a 40 mile round-trip from the Colossal Cave to the fairgrounds with me getting around 15 to 17 miles to the gallon, and diesel fuel running about four dollars a gallon, and a $15 a day campground fee at the colossal Cave, and a $30 a day fee at the fairgrounds, It doesn't take a mathematical genius to see there's really no savings if I have to go back and forth to the events every day.

So I'm gonna go to the rodeo this weekend and see how it works out, but I'm not going to be able to do what I used to do in the past which was stay at the fairgrounds for several weeks, and enjoy all the different events no matter what they were. It looks like the fairground events will now be just a special occasion for me and I'll have to find another favorite place to be.

Theboondork

This is a picture I took inside the gift shop. I'm not interested in gift shops, or the gifts they contain since I already have more things than the Lance can carry, and the last thing I need is more dust collecting doodads to tote around.

There's a lot of beautiful scenery while camping at the Colossal Cave Park.

My boondocking spot.

The picnic table in my boondocking spot

Huge barrel Cactus, the big one is as big around as a 55 gallon drum.