We loved Arizona, more than we thought we would, especially Catalina State Park. Enjoy this short highlight video of the park and of Seven Falls!
We left New Mexico last Thursday to head towards Coronado National Forest outside of Tucson, AZ. We hadn’t completely decided where we would stay, yeah yeah I know, so I googled places to camp in the area and found some good reviews for Catalina State Park on Campendium so Catalina State Park it is!
Our drive from Las Cruces to Catalina State Park was longgggg. Mylanta. I think the estimated time was around 4 hours, according to Google Maps, which in reality we expect it to take more like 5 to 5 and half hours. WELLLLL, I-10 was shut down right outside Lordsburg, NM which re-routed us up to highway 70 for around 60 miles. With the lowered speed limits, extra traffic, and new route I think it took us around 8 hours to arrive at Catalina State Park. We had thought about stopping elsewhere for the night but couldn’t find a spot that wasn’t completely out of the way. Anyway, we sure are glad we kept on trekking.
The view right when we pulled in.
We had originally planned to only stay Thursday and Friday night but when we woke up Saturday morning to head out, I convinced Mr. TCP that we should stay through the week. I was worn out from that previous drive, and honestly, what is the rush? When we determine where we are going to stay, we have to think about my work schedule so driving long distances during the week really isn’t an option. AND DRIVING LONG DISTANCES SUCKS. We headed up to the park ranger station and paid for our spot through Friday. What a relief. Oh, and as we were hitching up the trailer to move spots, Mr. TCP noticed that our left front tire on the Airstream was a bit shredded. You can read more about that here.
This park is great for many reasons and has really exceeded our expectations. Everything is super nice, well maintained and we practically have the park to ourselves during the week. We also go lucky with the location of the park, it’s in this town called Oro Valley which has great grocery stores and a Target. I think we visited the Target a total of 5 times since we have been here. Some of those trips we did not acquire anything new but one of the trips was to get new pillows. Riveting, I know. We started out with our king size pillows and since have decided those are just too big for our little ol’ bed.
Over the weekend we had the luxury of heading over to the other side of Coronado National Forest to hike Seven Falls. It was a fun and challenging hike. I’d definitely recommend checking it out if you are ever in the area.
I received this awesome hammock as a Christmas gift from my grandmother and it has been one of my favorite things so far. We were lucky to park near a spot that has trees to hang it on. From this point forward, I am going to judge camping spot based on the ability to hang my new Eno hammock. It’s the best!
I found the perfect spot for this awesome hammock.
Last night we had the converter break on us which means that the A/C wasn’t going to work. It’s been in the high 90s here lately so that was fantastic. Fortunately, Mr. TCP has replaced one of those before on our other Airstream so he ordered the parts and will be putting a new one tomorrow. Oh, and we are getting new tires today. These last couple of days have been expensive.
Arizona has really surprised us with it’s beauty and wide range of trails to hike. Our next stop is going to be somewhere along the way to San Diego, but we will be back Arizona!
One of the great things about doing what we are doing is that we get to spend our weekends exploring rather than working on home projects. Today we set out to hike Seven Falls in Coronado National Forest. Mr. TCP had originally found the hike and put the bug in my ear about it. There is a few different things I look for in terms of dubbing a particular trail worth the hike. The first thing is length of hike, difficulty level, scenery, and what are the chances we will see a snake. Anyone who knows me knows that I am TERRIFIED of snakes. It’s an unhealthy fear, but we won’t go into that here.
The length of this hike was perfect and on the longer side of what we have done in the past. But I love a challenge! It was a four mile hike into the falls with another four miles to hike back out. I had read a few different reviews of the trail in which people stated it took them 4+ hours to do the hike. That means it’s a two hour hike in and then another two out. I challenged us to complete it under 3 hours, and we did. It’s not a huge accomplishment because you’re looking at around a 30 minute walking mile. We did stop frequently to take pictures so we will just chalk our timing up to the stops.
I would say the difficulty was moderate but maybe intense for some. It was an uphill hike to the falls with an occasional downhill decent, but we spent a majority of the time hiking up. There were quite a few switch backs across a river which was nice. The first mile or so was on a paved road that apparently a trolley drives on to various stops along the way. If you would like to cut the hike short you could take the trolley and it would shave around 2 miles off the hike.
You can see Mr. TCP above taking some photos.
The scenery during the hike was phenomenal to say the least. You had mountains, cacti, trees, rivers, blue skies, and water falls. What more could you ask for?
All in all it was an amazing hike that was challenging yet fun. If you’re ever in the Tucson area, you should give it a try!
Having a sit down by the pools.
Oh, and we didn’t see any snakes. I didn’t look hard for them and I am sure they were out there, but I didn’t see any. So that is a win!