Driving our Class B RV to Saguaro National Park | Full Time RV living

Well, we just came from our most favorite boondocking spot, which is about 45 minutes outside of Tucson. And today we are going into Saguaro National Park. We're right before it and we're going to see if it is as beautiful as where we were just staying, where we got to sleep all amongst these great saguaro cacti. And choyas. And choyas. And we are in the west part of the park. This national park is actually split into a west and an east section with the city of Tucson right in the middle, which is kind of unique. We haven't seen any national parks with this set up yet, but I'm sure there's others out there. Yeah, right now we're in the Tucson Mountain Park, which is right before Saguaro West. And the drive up here was absolutely beautiful. There's all these great houses that are old and I'm sure very expensive up in the hills. Yeah, we picked out our future retirement home. We're coming here for sure. This is so beautiful. I love this landscape and I absolutely love the saguaros. I don't know why. It's like the forests of them. It's your favorite. It's your favorite landscaping for sure. It's amazing. The valley behind us is just insane. So we're going to get into the national park. We're going to go for a little on the Hohokam Road, which is kind of like a one way through the saguaros here, which is pretty cool. But the road is gravel, dirt, and she is a little bumpy. A little bumpy. Kind of like going boondocking. There's going to be a little bit of a gravel road with some bumps. Three miles an hour. Yeah. We just passed the Hugh Norris trailhead, which we were going to go just kind of get out and go on a couple mile hike. But there's really only parking for about five cars there. Yeah, it was completely full. So we're going to keep going and see if we can get to another trailhead and get out and stretch our legs. Valley View and Wild Trail Dog is what we settled on. It's the winner. Are you excited? Yeah. Get out and check out this landscape a bit. Yes. But first we are going to have some lunch because we're getting a little hangry at each other. So one of the many, many benefits we talk about is always having our kitchen with us, our bathroom with us, whatever we need. It's all here. So we're going to make up some lunch. I'm going to have some taco meat. The number one thing I preach about is having prepped protein with you all the time. So like right now, I'm just going to whip up an easy lunch with some tacos, some peppers, and cottage cheese. Aaron, I think, is going to have a peanut butter sandwich because that's what he likes. So easy lunch. Easy lunch. Fast food. This is what we love. We grab it. It doesn't take... It takes like literally three minutes for us to put together. Five minutes to eat. We're out the door. And then we're going to get this hike on. It is hot out there too. So we're going to drink some water and get out in that sunshine. Right, Aaron? Yep. There is some good amount of cars here too. So I'm excited. I think the miles on this one, Aaron said, is 2.7. Yeah, if we loop a couple trails together. So it's not the longest hike, but it's also not the shortest hike. Yeah. We did get some workout done this morning. So we have a little bit of a head start on our steps today, which is nice. This is going to get us to our 10,000 step goal. A little beyond that even. So that's going to be good. And then, I don't know. I don't know how long we'll be out here, but this is going to be one of the big highlights for us to just get out, walk around, check it out, enjoy some sunshine. And that's it. So this landscape is so close to where we were just boondocking out on Cattle Tank Road outside of Tucson. But it definitely has it beat on the Saguaro count. There's way more out here. Way more Saguaros. Way less Chollas. But it's so cool to just see the forest of Saguaros. Yeah. The weather is hot. Hot, but perfect. I mean, it's... We love some heat. It's like 75, but it's, you know, the desert and it's wintertime. So it gets cool pretty quickly. 40, low 40s overnight. Yeah. A bunch of our friends hightailed it over to Yuma because the Phoenix and Tucson area was a little bit cooler, but we waited it out and now it's rewardingly sunny and warm. Well, there was that big kind of freak snowstorm that hit and a lot of the desert got just a dusting of snow for, I'm sure, just a day. Yeah. I was just saying in the car that this would be absolutely magical to see this national park with a dusting of that snow. Yeah, it really would. So boondocking. Entire week. Great. Like I said before, we've kind of gotten that down really, really, really good. One week in the van is almost easy for us now. Yeah. Although today on day eight, we are officially out of water and our tank is pretty much full. Yeah, exactly. So we're actually going to be starting a week long harvest host fiesta down in lower Arizona. I'm calling it the tour of Tucson. That's going to be pretty cool. And the very first place we're going to is kind of like a hotel RV park. And so for $20, you can get a full hookup campsite, which for us just getting done boondocking, we need to dump our tanks and fill up on water and have a little bit of those amenities. Yeah. So we're going to use that to bridge our boondocking week plus our week of dry camping and harvest hosts. Our Battleborns are going to do great, but it is going to be nice tonight to just top everything off, take some long showers and start tomorrow fresh. So check out, wait for like our next episode that's on harvest hosts. If you are not familiar with them, they're really cool. And we've been members since 2018, but we'll get more into that when we're at our location tonight. This is our last little, I guess it's going to be our last kind of calm day before we're relocating every single day. Yeah. It's just going to allow us to explore Southern Tucson without worrying about boondocking, without worrying about much of anything. And we'll just be able to explore. We're excited to go to Tombstone. We've never been there. Yeah. Close to Mexico. Yeah. Last year we were in Tucson for a little bit. We went to a couple boondocking locations. We went to the Rail X against Snyder Hill. Yes. Not our favorites, but that was the beginning of our experiences of boondocking. Yeah. For the first. So this year we're getting in a lot deeper. Pretty view. You too. Oh, thank you. We made it to the end of the trail and it was only one mile. Now we're turning around and we're going to try to find a tiny little off loop that's on this loop. Yeah. It's back by the beginning. I thought this stretch was going to be a lot farther than a mile. A mile is kind of short. That mile just breezed by. It really did. I thought like no way we're to the end of it already, but it's tough to find some of the good big hiking spots sometimes. Well, that first one that we passed would have been good, but there is no parking. And that's just a classic, like if you really are set on doing a certain hike, you better plan ahead and get there early, especially if you're driving like a big RV. Yeah. So here we are just scrounging for whatever we can get, but that's okay. It's a little more exciting this way. Yeah. It's a nice mile through the cacti. Yeah, it is hot and it feels great. Needed some sunshine. Starting to get some color back on our skin. Oh, am I going the wrong way? That's like a goblin cactus howling at you. Aaron has been documenting all of the different cactuses that speak to him. We're going to do a Warshak test and get a whole bunch of cactuses and see what people see when they look at them. Will you pass our psych evaluation? So I did some reading on the east versus west national parks and from what I read, of course it's all subjective, but some people said that they like the west better because it's a little more rustic and it has a little less city feel to it compared to the east. So the loop over here is dirt road, as we showed you, and the one over on the east is paved. So you'll be able to zip through that a lot easier if that's what you're looking for. I don't think we'll end up making it to the east, do you Aaron? We talked about it, maybe. I thought maybe at the end of our kind of week-long harvest hosting, maybe. So it'd be a different day than today. We'd split it up. Yeah, not enough time today. The days go so fast. We were just talking about that how, well I was saying I'm really glad we ate lunch because I was getting kind of cranky and run down and I didn't even realize it and then we ate and I feel so much better. And then we're like, yeah, I mean the days get ahead of you so quickly. There's lots of cactus or coyote poop. Cactus poop? That's a big one. Damn cactus poop. How do you even do that, Mr. Cactus? Okay, traditional halfway, half point bubbly water. It's time. I'm jonesing. What flavors do we have? You're a pink grapefruit. Numb. Cranberry lime. Want me to open that for you? Yeah. Cheers. It's really the little joys in life. It's hot. My back is sweating with this backpack. Let me see. That's why I hate wearing backpacks in any type of heat or sun. It's just it's not comfortable. It's wet but gotta do it. You'd be reckless if you didn't. Yes. You got your bear spray? You have your rape whistle? Yes, I have my Arizona bear spray. Does that work on rattlers? My southern Arizona bear spray. Ready? Yes. Onward. The pencil cholla, it's a perennial shrub. These have flower buds on them. You can see they look like coral and green beans and okra. Oh, look at this. Can you see it? I don't know if you spotted that. You walked right by it. Budding all around. Yeah. We've never seen it from this angle. It's cool. And that's the end of the hike. We're getting ready to head out to our first harvest toast of the night. Yes. Which will be fun. We want to arrive a little bit early so we can get there and check it out. But otherwise this was a nice peaceful national park. I liked it a lot. Yeah, it was a perfect day of exploration, sunshine, low key. It was great. Beautiful day. So that's about it. We'll catch you on the next video. Bye.