Desert Trails

We arrived at Desert Trails RV Park on Saturday, March 14. This is one of our favorite campgrounds, and we'd been here before in 2019, 2020, and 2024. It's an RV park that caters to "snowbirds." When we began planning this trip in November 2025, we'd hoped to spend two months at Desert Trails, but the recovery from Jeannette's two bunion surgeries shortened that time to one month.

You can see the Ciaowagen on the left side of this photo of part of the campground.

During the "season," Desert Trails has a full roster of daily activities including yoga, mountain biking, crafts, sports such as bocce, and concerts. Some of that continued during our time here, including visits by three food trucks each week to add some variety to our dining.

Music concert under the shades in the BBQ area

The park began emptying out toward the end of March, and by the time we left in mid-April more than two-thirds of the campsites were empty. The last planned activity was a potluck Easter dinner, with about 43 guests participating.

Carrying our Easter dish (salad caprese) to the Recreation Hall

Ciaowagen Repairs

We didn't include this in our last blog entry, but while we were camping in Alamogordo, NM we discovered that our 12v Furrion refrigerator had stopped working. YouTube advice on quick fixes didn't work. We bought a large cooler at Walmart and two bags of ice (one for the cooler, the other stuffed into the freezer of our non-working fridge) to try and preserve our food. We also ordered a "car fridge" (which could be plugged into either 12v or 110v power) from Walmart and had that delivered to Desert Trails. Finally, we found a highly-rated mobile RV technician in Tucson and scheduled a visit for the Thursday after our arrival.

Our temporary food storage

During the drive from Alamogordo to Tucson, the fridge mysteriously started working again, then stopped working about a day-and-a-half after our arrival. We still had the mobile tech come by to diagnose the problems, since we had 7+ months of travel ahead of us. Testing all the electrical components from the campground pedestal to the refrigerator, he discovered that (1) our seven-year old surge protector was malfunctioning...

R.I.P., old surge protector. We hardly knew ye.

Our new surge protector can be controlled with WiFi!

...(2) our "convertor," which takes 110v campground "shore power" and converts it to 12v to charge our lithium-ion batteries, was not hooked up correctly...

The convertor, white, sits beneath the fuses and circuit breakers

...so (3) the engine charged the batteries above a critical voltage as we drove from Alamogordo to Tucson, restarting the fridge, but then as the battery power was drawn down after we camped, it dropped below that critical voltage and the fridge shut off, and (4) all this on-and-off blew the fuse inside the fridge. The solution? Throw away the old surge protector (we ordered a newer replacement, picture above), connect the convertor properly, and replace the fuse. The result? A working fridge!

Unfortunately, that was not the only problem we experienced. While driving west, we noticed bad smells emanating from the toilet. When we arrived in Tucson, we used a special sprayer wand to clean out the area below the toilet (something we typically do about once per month when we're out in the Ciaowagen), but then found that black water was dripping from the compartment where the black water tank is stored.

The mobile RV tech looked at the toilet and the tank, and thought that the problem was probably a leak in the pipe that connected the two. That was more than he could fix, so Friday morning we drove to an RV repair shop in Tucson to see if they could fix the problem. They diagnosed the problem as a flange which had bent when the toilet was inserted into the pipe, but were not able to solve the problem that day. We returned to the campground for the weekend, and then drove back to the repair shop on Monday so they could complete the work. During the repairs, they discovered that the flushing valve had a crack, so they replaced the toilet as well. This is probably the 3rd or 4th toilet we've had since 2019. We hope, now, that all problems are fixed - at least for the rest of this trip through the Rockies!

We took advantage of the lower prices in Tucson to have the Ciaowagen washed and waxed. We long ago lost most of the gel-coat that makes RVs shiny - waxing brings back some of the shine, and protects the fiberglass from the sun.

BEFORE

AFTER

The flags in the window are all the countries we've visited.

Finally, as we were leaving Tucson we had all six of the Ciaowagen tires replaced. RV tires tend to age out rather than wear out, with the rubber deteriorating from sun damage, and our tires were five years old. They also had a good 60,000 miles on them.

The Heat Dome Arrives

Unfortunately, a Southwest "heat dome" arrived in Tucson a few days after we did, with temperatures as high as 101 degrees - temps which wouldn't ordinarily occur until sometime in May - for three days in a row.

Providentially, we'd decided to have a second air conditioning unit installed in our RV over the winter (it originally only came with one), which helped keep the inside temperature in 80s rather than the 90s during the heat dome.

The new A/C sits in an opening in the bedroom ceiling that previous held a vent fan.

 It would be another week before the temperatures returned to their seasonal normals - highs in the 70s and 80s..

Desert Hikes

One of the things we love about Desert Trails is the ability to hike right out into the desert from the campground. There are over 25 acres of trails through a wide variety of cactus plants.

Those 25 acres connect to the 20,000-acre Tucson Mountain Park, which has 62 miles of trails. For the really ambitious, Tucson Mountain Park connects to the western unit of Saguaro National Park.

We tried to hike in the desert most days during our stay. We started with short hikes in the morning and near sunset, helping Jeannette recover from her recent bunion surgeries on both feet and rebuilding her stamina.

We thought of these two saguaros, near the campground, as our "portal" into the desert.

These hikers must not have paid attention to the desert conditions...

On hot days, we would hike late in the day, coming back to the campground during beautiful sunsets.

Desert Trails RV Park sits on the western side of the city, about 20 minutes drive from downtown, and on the other side of mountains that are the remnants of a great volcanic eruption 90 million years ago.

This image was taken from Gates Pass, where a road leads over the mountains. On the valley's right hand side, you can see "Old Tucson," a movie set and theme park. Farther out, on the left, is Tucson Estates, a retirement community. The campground lies beyond that. Behind us is the city of Tucson.

Saguaros (pronounced suh-WAHR-o's)

Saguaros are our favorite cactus, the classic symbol of the desert. They live for 150 years or more, growing very slowly but ultimately very tall. It can take 80 years or more for them to add their first side arm, and they can grow to be 40 feet high and live up to 200 years. Saguaros grow only in the Sonoran Desert, and only at elevations below 4,500 feet. Fortunately, Tucson's climate is perfect for them.

We gave some of our favorite saguaros names:

The Cheerleader

Angel Catching a Fly

The Dead Seahorse

The Quadruplets

"I'm on drugs. How about you?"

The Depressed One

We first remarked on this saguaro from afar because of its dramatic shape, then noticed the nest of a Great Horned Owl as we got closer. We couldn't see any chicks, though.

Chollas

The Sonoran Desert hosts other types of cacti as well, including several varieties of cholla (CHOY-ah) bushes.

Staghorn Cholla have thick branches.

These Teddy Bear Cholla have supersharp needles. The small balls will fall off the bush and can snag your pants or shoes if you're not paying attention.

Chainfruit Cholla look somewhat similar to Teddy Bear Cholla.

This closeup shows how Chainfruit Cholla gets its name

The Pencil Cholla has thin branches

Desert Blooms

We stayed in Tucson long enough to see the desert plants start to bloom. Usually the flowers are only open for a day or two, and then wilt and fall off. Some open, close, and then grow fruit inside.

Prickly pear cacti have beautiful yellow flowers

The Ironwood tree has pink blossoms. The wood is extremely hard - hence the name.

Barrel cacti have bright yellow fruit

Sticklike ocotillo (Oak-O-TEE-oh) produce bright red flowers at their tips.

Green-trunked Palo Verde trees sport yellow blossoms for a short time, but may be bare of leaves much of the rest of the year.

Tiny hedgehog cacti sport bright pink flowers

Staghorn cholla produce flowers of red, yellow, and orange.

Saguaro bud and flower from multiple locations on the cactus.

Saguaro flowers open overnight and are usually out for only one day.

For more spectacular desert bloom photos, check out one of our blog posts made when we were at Desert Trails RV Park during the first part of the 2020 pandemic.

This is probably long-enough for one blog post! We'll share more about our time in Tucson in our next post, due out in about a week. Stay tuned!