Arivaca, AZ, The Universal Ranch RV Park

This is the Friday night 2/9/24 post that didn’t post when it indicated that it did.  Don’t know what went wrong.  

 Moving day.  Nice day for a move too, very foggy at sunrise which cleared up by the time we left, around 10.  With only a couple hours there was no need to hurry.

With 1-3” of snow forecast above 4000’ (and being at 4560’) it seemed wise to seek out lower and warmer places.  We had some places in mind north of Nogales, like Tubac.  Tubac has a historic Presidio Museum as one of the places the early Spanish visited.  But this weekend is their big festival.  Everything is full all around them.  We had a look at it as we came by, quite crowded for a one-street town!

So here we are in Arivaca, AZ.  It claims to be one of the oldest towns in AZ.  It is small, laid back, one store, one or two restaurants and a big wildlife sanctuary.  

The Universal Ranch RV Park is also pretty laid back!  No problem finding a site here, about 40% vacancy, the rest appears to be permanent.  Also no problem if you have an older trailer (some parks don't allow trailers over 10 years old) as that’d be young here!  But they are full hookup sites.  The lady suggested that we check the water and electric before parking.  Ours worked.  It was also pick-your-own site.  So we parked, dumped, refilled and got all set for tomorrow’s chill.  Even a small chance of snow showers around noon here, but no accumulation.

After lunch we did some exploration, went down to Arivaca Lake about 10 miles south.  A wee bit rough road but a nice lake.  Yup, a real lake with water in it!  Skye so wanted a swim.  But at 3PM we didn’t need a wet dog all evening.  Then roamed around some other dirt roads looking for boondock sites.  We are a bit spoiled by the vastness and simplicity of Empire Ranch!  We paid for 3 nights but may be a bit longer to look around well.  

Once back in Arivaca we stopped at the Buenos Aires Wildlife Sanctuary for a walk.  About 2 miles around the first circle.  It was a marsh but it has dried out a lot so there is little surface water.  And without the water there are few birds.  But we did see 2 deer, flags up and trotting away!  5 minutes later we came upon 2 Javelina. they were so engaged in rutting around for food they didn’t notice us at first.  But before we could get a camera out they realized we had snuck up on them wayyyyy too close for their comfort.  SNORT and run.  But it was our first sighting of Javelina in the wild, so we were pleased with that.

Nice view of the big mountain this morning.

Can’t even see the hills we walked out to!