With unpredictable weather north of Phoenix, we decided to head south to Tucson. Our bucket-list of visiting all the national parks did not have a check mark next to Saguaro National Park. Plus the weather and driving conditions were noticeably better heading south.
We book three nights at the Tucson/Lazydays KOA primarily for its location. Saguaro National Park is split into east & west sections about 30mi apart, separated by Tucson. The KOA was about midway so we planned to visit the west park Tuesday then hike the east park Wednesday.
The easy, scenic drive from northern Phoenix to southern Tucson was a ~2.5hrs. We passed Picacho Peak State Park, surrounded by wildflowers, and added it to our list of places to visit next time. It’s midway between Phoenix and Tucson and it’s distinctive peak has some challenging trails. Plus it’s in a ‘dark-sky’ area so would be great for astrophotography.
March is a great time to visit Tucson and Saguaro NP but it was overcast with scattered showers two of the days we were there. The Tucson/Lazydays KOA is huge with a variety of RV sites ranging from covered pull-thrus ($110+/ni) to small back-in sites. There’s actually a BBQ restaurant-bar on-site so after we pulled-in and setup. We stopped there for BBQ & beer.

We had time to catch an Arizona sunset so an hour before, we headed to Gates Pass Scenic Outlook towards west Saguaro National Park. This is supposed to be the best place around town to catch the sunset. Being popular, it was recommended we get there early so we could find a parking space in the overlook’s small lot. With the overcast skies, we were not predicting a spectacular sunset. But the clouds were clear at the horizon so I hoped the sun might break through before disappearing behind the mountains. Not spectacular, but the sun did shine through for a short time just above the horizon.