On our way to Rincon Country, we stopped for a steak lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse. We kept our grocery buying to a minimum because we were going to be flying to Hawaii at the end of our stay at Rincon Country and would be there for six days. 
After our five days at Escapade, we needed a little downtime to re-energize and catch up on emails, blog entries, and laundry. Since the weather was chilly, this gave us an excuse to stay mostly indoors during our first few days at Rincon Country. Tim also completed and filed our tax forms during this time.
After a few days at Rincon Country, we were fully energized and rented a car for running errands and seeking adventure. Tim did some research and scheduled an appointment to get his haircut at a salon called II Sons for Men (as in "two sons" or Tucson). Tim thought his barber, Sisqo, did an excellent job with his hair and would consider using Sisqo again if we are back in Tucson for an extended period. Pat got his hair cut at Sports Clips because he says his hair doesn't require a fancy barber.
The next day, we drove to the nearby Saguaro National Park. This was our third national park visit since beginning our fulltime RV travels. We stopped at the Visitor's Center to get our passbooks stamped and to buy a few souvenirs. Then, we drove the loop around the park and to some of the trails to do a little hiking. Soon after we started our drive around the park, we left the paved loop road and drove down a dirt road to have lunch at the Mica View Picnic Area and walk a portion of the nearby Mica View Trail (0.7-mile trail) and Cactus Forest Trail (a 1.2-mile trail). Then we drove to the trail head for the Tanque Verde Ridge Trail and hiked a portion of this 11.2-mile trail. The views of the saguaros, the Mica Mountain, and the Tanque Verde Peak were spectacular.
At the end of our stay at Rincon Country, we drove the RV to Picacho Peak State Park, located off of I-10 between Tucson and Phoenix. This Arizona State Park is well known for its wildflowers, which were in full bloom during our visit. We took a hike on the Calloway Trail at the park, a 0.5-mile trail that leads to an overlook. The Calloway trail was moderately steep but gave us some magnificent views of Picacho Peak and the wildflowers. The only downside to the views is that the park is located adjacent to I-10, which can be seen from the hiking trails and interferes with taking great pictures.
After this hike, we returned to the RV, but we didn't stay overnight in our RV at Picacho Peak. We were leaving our RV at Picacho Peak State Park while we flew to Kauai, Hawaii, for our 25th Wedding Anniversary. We chose this RV park to leave our RV during our trip because it was reasonably priced and had electric hookups. We wanted to leave the RV hooked up to electricity during our trip after our last experience of storing the RV during our cruise in February 2023; specifically, having to throw away our all of our refrigerated items and defrost the refrigerator and freezer before we left since we would not be hooked up to electricity, then spending a small fortune to restock the refrigerator and freezer. [For more details on why we didn't like that experience, see our blog entry on February 11, 2023, entitled Deep Pocket Neighbors and Wonderful Friends.]
We still had the rental car at this point, so we drove to Phoenix, where we would be staying the night in a hotel then returning our the car before our flight left from Phoenix to Kauai, Hawaii, the next day. We won't blog about the trip to Kauai (see our Facebook posts about this trip), so the next blog entry for our readers will be after we return from our trip and are back in the RV.
Review of Rincon Country East Resort
Rincon Country East Resort, located in Tucson, Arizona, is a gated community for those 55+ years old only. The landscape and view are spectacular. Uniquely, the park was split in half between sites where pets were allowed and sites where pets were not allowed. Rincon Country has 460 sites, some of which are small houses for rent, and some permanent residents live in small houses. In fact, it seemed to us that at least half of the sites were small houses.
Amenities included a pool, hot tub, auditorium, exercise facility, library, woodworking shop, arts & crafts room, gift shop, hiking & biking trails, tennis & pickleball courts, shuffleboard, horseshoes, bocce ball, laundry facility, and restroom/showers. It also has recycling bins, which seems to be rare for RV parks.
Rincon Country has various activities for those staying at the resort, including water aerobics; quilting; poker; yoga; gardening; morning coffee & donuts; and a shuttle bus that takes excursions into the city of Tucson. Rincon Country is also located close to Saguaro National Park and the Pima Air and Space Museum.
Our RV site had full hookups and the parking area for the RV was gravel. There was a large cement pad located adjacent to the parking area for our site that could be used to set up chairs or a grill; however, the resort had no picnic tables, grills, or fire pits located on the RV sites. We had plenty of space between our RV and the next RV site on the passenger's side; however, the driver's side with the slide was almost abutting the permanent small house located next door.
We really loved how beautiful the view was at the resort and how close it was to the Saguaro National Park and the restaurants, bars, and stores located in Tucson. Since the weather was cool most of the time we were there, we didn't take advantage of the pool. Tim attempted to sign up for one of the shuttle bus activities, a "beer tour"; however, it was already full by the time he went to sign up. We would definitely consider returning to Rincon Country and staying longer so that we could enjoy more of what it has to offer.
Review of Picacho Peak State Park
Picacho Peak State Park offers 85 sites for tent and RV camping, with electric hookups only. For water needs, campers must use their freshwater tanks, or the restroom/showers located in the RV and tent camping area (ours was within a few minutes walking distance). For sewer needs, there is a dump station. Access to the sites is paved. The park is gated, and the gate closes at 10:00 p.m. (no in or out between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.). All sites offer a picnic table, fire pit, and grill. The sites are cement, fairly level, and located in the desert. What was so unique about these RV sites was that the sites were not parallel to each other (the sites were scattered in different directions) and there was a huge distance between sites. This allowed the park to position the picnic table, fire pit, and grill, in a space located separately from the RV parking site and really felt like we had an additional space for hanging out that was all our own. We wished that we were spending more time overnight in this park because of this unique layout and the quiet and solitude it provided. We would definitely consider going back to Picacho Peak State Park for an actual stay of a night or two.
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