Campground Roulette - or - Human Migrants chasing Migrant Birds

March 17, 2011

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

The last three days have been a game of campsite roulette.  Either we came earlier to Tucson, Arizona (where we are now) in previous years or other snowbirds have discovered our favorite spot here:  Catalina State Park located NE of Tucson in Oro Valley.  It's at the base of the Catalina Mountains and Mt. Lemmon.  There's wonderful birding here, and more open space per campsite than in a typical RV park.

When we arrived on Tuesday at about 3:00p.m., the campgrounds were full and only overflow camping was available.  'Overflow' is near the group campsites and is a big dusty open space where the RVs are circled like so many wagons until 'dry' or 'electric/water' sites are available.  We were given a number indicating our place in line for a spot in one of the campgrounds.  Luckily, it's easy for us to disconnect the trailer from the van and reconnect again.  We disconnected so we could go to town to get some supper, not wanting to bother with cooking without water to clean up the dishes.  And, the next morning we needed to be ready early as the hosts anticipated 20+ rigs would be moved as campers vacated their sites in Campground A (dry & hook-ups) and Campground B (all electric/water hook-ups). 

As the next day was Wednesday, we elected to go on the park sponsored weekly bird walk - naturally! - and hope our number (15) hadn't been passed up, or that the overflow area hosts would indeed, as they said they would, give us first priority when we returned from birding.  The bird walk (with an experienced volunteer leader helping identify the birds we would see) lasted about three hours, and when we returned all the rigs in the overflow lot from the day before had been moved to a campsite in Loop A or B.  Our number had been passed up.

Now, you have to imagine what this process is like.  The overflow camping lot this time of year is a constant revolving of RVs.  They come, they stay overnight, they go and others come to replace them.  The hosts in overflow get no rest, and take a lot of heat unfortunately from unhappy campers.  In our view, there's no point in getting angry at the hosts; we were grateful for an overflow option. 

Our preference was to be assigned a campsite in Campground B (much nicer with larger, clean bathrooms with great showers).  The host in overflow told us we were next when we returned from the bird walk.  However, we are so small - our Casita 16' travel trailer is dwarfed by the big RVs - that the hosts in their flustered state with so many angry campers, completely forgot us and sent three or four other rigs to Campgrounds A or B when the call from the hosts in those loops came in - "Vacant spot, send over another RV."  Finally, I asked the host in Overflow when it would be our turn.  He was totally embarrassed to admit he and his wife both had forgotten us.  Right away with the next call from 'A' or 'B,' we were sent over. 

It turned out to be Campground A, a dry camping spot.  So, one more night we stayed without hookups until once again this morning we got "the call" to move to Campground B (whew!) to a spot with hook-ups.  Now we feel settled, but for a while there we felt like we were caught in a game of roulette, and I guess we kind of were.  Seems like we've lost a few days, plus we're not really sure what day it is as the web of campground roulette held us hostage until we were assigned a "permanent" spot.  We'll stay here four or five nights before we leave the Tucson area.

So, yesterday we took two bird walks, one at the campground in the morning and one at Sweetwater Wetlands, the city water reclamation area - a great place to see birds, but not too aromatic - in the evening.  Today, we set up camp, showered, got haircuts and called it an administrative and maintenance day. 

Tomorrow beckons - we'll hop in the van and go exploring. 

Until next time,
Pam