January 2025 in Tucson
Quartzite to Wilcox, AZ | Visiting Friends in Tucson, AZ | The Sandhill Crane Migration in Wilcox | January 2025
When we left Kofa NWR, we drove North on US-95 to Quartzite to take I-10 East. Before today, I knew that this area was a popular spot with nomads in the winter, and expected to see a lot of vans and RVs on our way. We had also talked to a guy while camping in Sawtooth Canyon in California who had asked if we were coming this way, and said there would be ‘a million other travelers there.’ We had believed that was an exaggeration, but today we saw it all for ourselves and realized that number couldn’t have been too far off — and we only saw the vehicles that were parked in the campgrounds along the highway. It was astounding, the number of RVs packed in to this area and the amount of traffic here. Especially considering that Quartzite doesn’t really have much going on, or much in terms of services — it just has tons of public land. We later learned this was likely the peak of the season because there was both a huge meetup going on, as well as a gem show, but it definitely made us thankful that we had found the quiet spot in the NWR. Curtis simply couldn’t imagine being here in basically a suburban neighborhood of RVers, but the more I think about it, I think it’s a good thing that 1) these people are all in RVs and don’t all own second homes here or in any other Southwestern city, and 2) they are contained to this area, leaving the wilder areas more open for us to enjoy. And while we can’t imagine that ever being us, I don’t think I can say with certainty that we will never ever stay there…..
Today our goal was to just make it closer to Tucson, where we were planning on spending the weekend, and enjoying another public land area that we hadn’t seen before. We took I-10 East to AZ-85, bypassing Phoenix and heading South to I-8. While driving through Buckeye, we saw the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in the distance. Sadly this is not one that Curtis gets to service, but it’s one of those places that is always in the back of our minds when we think about “if we had to pick ONE power plant for Curtis to work at for the long term, which one would we choose?” This is currently our only option in Arizona – our favorite state – but unfortunately it is closest to our least favorite city in the state. Of course it’s on the far outskirts of Phoenix, but with the way that cities grow, how long would it be before it’s just another overcrowded suburb? Oh well, at least this isn’t a decision that we have to make today.
We ended up finding a spot in the Table Rock public land area, a few miles South of I-8. We were, of course, surrounded by mountains in every direction that Curtis wanted to hike, but unfortunately couldn’t get close enough to consider hiking to any of them. The road to the Table Rock trailhead is much too rough for our van, and was at least 5 miles away from where we camped. All the more reason to consider getting a bike. Anyway, besides the fact that he couldn’t hike, we enjoyed a relaxing few days here.
When Thursday finally rolled around, we packed up and made the short drive into Tucson, beginning our long weekend filled with time spent with all our friends here! We managed to see almost everyone that lives in the area that we’re still in touch with, and had a wonderful time catching up with friends. Out of all the places we’ve lived, Tucson is the one place where we can return to and honestly feel like things are the most similar to how they were when we left. This is mostly because everywhere else we lived, we were with the military and most of our friends in those places were also military, and since then those friends have scattered all around the country. But in Tucson, we can meet up with many of our old friends, return to restaurants or hiking trails that we used to frequent, and actually get a glimpse of what our lives would look like if we had never left. It’s so easy to talk to everyone here, to exchange stories about hiking and travels, and to feel a real sense of community and like everyone here actually knows us. By the end of the weekend, we even found ourselves on Zillow looking at homes and imagining what it would be like if this was our life again. But our time on the road doesn’t feel over yet, so instead we’ll continue to look forward to the next time life leads us back to Tucson. To our friends there — Gen, Jon & Debbie, Pat & Jack, Jodi, Mitch & Emily, and Alex & Kathy — thank you for welcoming us back to the desert with open arms, we can’t explain how much we appreciate your friendship to us despite time and distance!
When the weekend was over, we packed up and began our long journey back East. When we first arrived in Tucson, we were planning on spending this weekend here, then having 2 weeks to get to our next destination, back in the Midwest. However, on our first morning here we found out that things had changed, and now our plans felt very up in the air. We still didn’t know by the time we planned to leave, but we knew we would have to go back East eventually so it seemed like a smart idea to start slowly driving in that direction.
For our first day of driving, we drove just 2 hours to Wilcox, AZ, to one of our favorite spots from our last Southwestern trip. Since it was the end of January, we knew the sandhill crane migration was going on, and so we wanted to spend another night hanging out with our favorite migratory birds. We’re not so different from them — we too like to travel the country, looking for ideal weather, and spend our winters in Arizona. When we arrived at Twin Lakes, the groups had already begun to fly in from wherever they were feeding, so we spent the afternoon watching the group grow larger and larger until half the lake looked to be packed with the birds. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and fell asleep to the sound of the cranes. We didn’t know what the rest of our journey would look like, but we knew we were happy to return to another place we loved.
