After two nights at Lost Dutchman State Park, we drove a couple hours south to the Tucson area for a few nights at Catalina State Park. This park came highly recommended on the RV Reviews site, but the campground host we talked to at River Island liked Lost Dutchman a lot more. She was right. Catalina is a nice enough park with huge sites and elbow room, it has miles of hiking trails, and is famous for bird watching. We didn’t think it was near as scenic as Anza Borrego or Lost Dutchman, but we definitely enjoyed our 4 night stay. Not a bad campground, but not a “destination” one either – maybe an “8”.
The bathrooms were about an 8 too, because the showers were a bit luke-warm. Let me say a little something about bathroom ratings. As my big brother Dan pointed out to me, rating bathrooms at campgrounds is apparently something I always did as a kid. I guess nice bathroom while camping is important to me, although I’m perfectly happy with a bush behind the trailer too. 
A bathroom rating of 10 is clean and doesn’t need repairs. The sink area has soap and paper towels, and the shower is free, has a curtain, so water doesn’t spray all over your clothes, and you can set the water temp at whatever you want.
On the first day we drove south about 40 miles to visit Tubac, which is a cool artsy-crafty town with old buildings and lots of shops. We had a nice lunch and bought some Mexican pottery and a neato tortoise that we plan to put near the fountain.
The second day we drove to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum which is about 1/2 hr west of Tucson. This is an amazing place with live desert displays, trails, animals, reptiles, birds and great displays. 
We also visited the nearby Gilbert Ray County Park campground as recommended by a nice fellow we met at Lost Dutchman. This is a fine large campground in a desert setting, and all sites have power. While the sites have no water or waste hookups, they do have a dump and potable water available. This campground looks to be a “10”. The have a 7-day limit and don’t take reservations – perfect for us. While we didn’t stay here, we will definitely next time and visit the museum again as well as the nearby “Old Tucson” town area and Saguaro Nat’l Park.
On the last day in the Tucson area we played a round of golf at a nice municipal course. Next stop – Tombstone Territories.
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