Asah Gweh Oou-o

I think we've finally found the place we'll be staying at next winter! Valle del Oro is a very nice RV resort, but it's BIG! There are more RV and Park Model sites here then there were people in the town of Ritzville where I grew up. While there are lots of activities going on all the time, most of it is stuff we're not interested in. I guess we'd rather be out bird-watching or flower hunting then dancing and partying.

I've been saying for some time that I wanted to find an RV site where you could tell you were in the desert. We liked Desert Gardens, but didn't really want to buy our lot. And its heavily-graveled interior roads wouldn't make for very fun bike-riding. We also liked the Escapees North Ranch, but once again all of the large lots are the ones you have to buy. And it's a long way from the baseball parks!

I had read an ad for Asah Gweh Oou-o or Eagle View RV Resort in an Arizona RV Magazine I had picked up at Camping World when we were there last week. Since it was near Scottsdale, we decided to go look at it today.

The address of the RV Park is Fort McDowell. You turn into it right across the highway from the Fort McDowell Casino. It is a small park with only 250 sites -- and NO park models! The interior streets are paved and there are cement patios at each RV site. We drove around and really like the looks of it. One side of the park is bordered by the Verde River and there are views of the mountains all the way around. We liked what we were seeing, but decided that we'd not make any decisions today...

Then we went into the office to talk to Sandy. She said they had started a new offer for next winter that would give you the months of October through December for $600 per month. That's inclusive -- water, garbage, sewer and electricity! (All of which we are being charged separately for where we are this winter -- electricity alone has been right around $200 per month.) All of the perimeter sites on the river side were already taken and there were only six perimeter sites left on the other side.

We went back out and drove around again, checking out the view from the various sites. We picked out three that basically had a view down an interior street of the park out to the desert and the mountains. Then we went back to the office and made a deposit on this site, #169 --

Looking down the interior street, you can see the mountains in the distance.You can also see that this RV park is definitely in the desert!

This is the office, community room, laundry, etc. building. The swimming pool and a hot tub are behind it. We had a chance to visit with a couple who were in the pool. They were from Wisconsin and were spending their third winter here. 

We took the back road from Fort McDowell back to Mesa that goes by Saguaro Lake. It is a gorgeous drive -- especially with the sun shining on the rocks.