Cave Creek Regional Park

Maricopa County Parks & Recreation has five county parks which have RV camping spots with water and electric and a wonderful desert view. Cave Creek has 38 such camping sites, and although the website says all can accommodate a 45’ RV, I would say that most do, a few would be tight.  But if you reserve a site, they will tell you just how large the site is, and offer three pictures of the site so you can get an idea of if your RV will fit or not.

   

We selected a “drive through”, which is more like a large pul-out along the road.  You can see it is wide enough to park the HHR next to the motorhome so it shortens the walk for Marcia.  On the other side is the large camping site….they do allow for a tent or two to be set up along with an RV, but there is a surcharge for having more than two people.  There is water and electric, and they don’t care if you park the way we did, or the other way so that your door opens up to the camping site.  For us, we would rather have an easier in and out since we rarely use the camping site anyways. 

Last time we stayed at McDowell Mountain Regional Park during the month of December and into the new year…the link above is to the first of many postings we did from McDowell.  But now it is spring….and the desert is full of vibrant colors right now. 

There are many Palo Verde in the park, and they are yellow with a very green trunk.  The Palo Verde is the state tree of Arizona, and the official name is Parkinsonia florida.  Its name means "green pole or stick" in Spanish, referring to the green trunk and branches, that perform photosynthesis.

The Teddy Bear Cholla are in bloom.

They are very pretty up close…but not too close because those stickers will hurt like the dickens.   Marcia says that if you walk close they seem to jump on you, and you will know it when it happens.

But you have to get close to see the pretty little flower...just not too close.

The Buckhorn Cholla are also in bloom, although some are coming out of bloom.

They too have a small flower…

...I think they are small to lure one in closer for an easier attack on the unsuspecting photographer.

    

This Purple Prickly Pear was on the access road to the park…we saw very few Prickly Pears.

And this one above is one of the few regular Prickly Pear bushes that we saw, and it was behind a fence.

    

There are many blooming plants….it is nice to be here this time of the year.

And of course, there is the every looming Saguaro is all over the place.  I am always amazed that as you drive down from Flagstaff toward Phoenix, that the Saguaro magically appear at the 3,000 foot elevation mark.  And once they show up, they are everywhere…and you never get tired of looking at them. As Marcia said, it looks like the Saguaro have their arms raised praising God….couldn’t agree with her more.

 

We had a nice visit with Joyce for most of the day, eating lunch at the Greektown Restaurant named the best Greek food in Phoenix 15 times now.  We liked this place so much we are eating there again Tuesday night!  For dinner Laurie joined us and we back to Chompie’s, which we reviewed previously, and you can read that here.