https://maricopacountyparks.org/usery
Enough desert already😎. Time to start slowly making our way north. From Deming NM we drove back on I-10, then north on routes 70 & 60 which are quiet 2 lane highways (by that I mean little truck traffic) through the desert toward Phoenix. We planned to stay in Oak Flat Campground – National forest for a night. Along our route we passed few cars, and YAY – no big rigs, but unfortunately one car spewed a rock at us and which chipped, then quickly cracked, our windsheild. We stopped at the one repair shop open in a small town along the way, but their ‘guy’ was not available for hours, so we drove on.. As we drove the crack got longer to the point of maybe needing a new windsheild, so now a call to the insurance and we will wait until Phoenix.
One of those days! We pulled into the National Forest area right off the highway in a beautiful spot and it looked promising. But wait- the locals are having a weekend PowWow and have occupied the entire camping area. On to Plan B – if we had one that would have been great………… In the end we decided just to continue on to a county park near Pheonix – Maricopa County has 6 parks in the region. We called Usery Mountain, they had a couple overflow spots open and the ranger said he would hold one for us which was soooo nice. Given by the traffic passing by at the gate as we checked in, the park is very popular because there are tons of hiking trails. The campground looked really good with large, well spaced sites. The overflow however was a parking area in the group camping with pylons marking the spots. Oh well, a spot for the night.
As this park was full up for days, we called and booked one of the other county parks, Lake Pleasant, on the north side of Phoenix, for 4 nights.
Getting ready to leave next morning, Chris met a fellow nomad who informed us of some great BLM right outside this park that has some remote but easily accessible sites – permit needed by the county office – and that one area in particular has a herd of wild horses. Definitely going to keep that in the back pocket.