Free Times: Snowbird 101: Arizona in Winter, So Much to See and Do

It's not just that there is a lot to do, but you get to do it in warm, pleasant weather (once January is over). While you can frequently wear shorts and flip-flops, the news from back home is it's cold...gray, dreary i.e. not Arizona.

Snowbirds head south in winter, so do most all other birds. A favorite place to find birds is Patagonia Lake State Park, just east of Nogales. We could usually count on stopping there anytime without a reservation. It grows in popularity every year. This year we arrived to learn the park was full. Additional RV parks and a few Forest Service campgrounds are in the area.

Professional ornithologists lead bird walks every Wednesday and Friday

You might see a vermilion fly catcher.

And for years we looked in the mesquite and hack berry forest for the resident elegant trogon. Sadly, as of 2018 the trogon has vanished (likely dead). Because the trogon is at the far north end of its range, Patagonia Lake drew lots of birders for a chance to add this rare bird to their life list.

Beautiful cinnamon teal are just one of a dozen duck species to winter in Patagonia.

10,000 sandhill cranes are said to winter west of the Mississippi. An estimated 8,000 are said to winter in the valley south of Wilcox. Any given day, you can see thousands of Sandies lolling around Whitewater Draw, just north of Douglas.

The sounds of 100s of cranes calling will provoke something like rapture in birders.

There are dozens of ghost towns in Arizona, and locating ghost towns is a good way to locate boondocking campsites.

The bottle house in Rhyolite, Nevada, not technically in Arizona, but on the way to AZ right outside Beatty, Nevada and on the road into the northern end of Death Valley. Worth a look.

When we took up snowbirding, Susan took up the guitar. Now six years into it, she as gotten very good at entertaining me around happy hour. This is my favorite picture of her/guitar in hand. I consider it the cover art for her first album.

The OK Corral shoot out re-enactment in Tombstone is very entertaining.

Wait for the stars...or lights to come out at night (Lake Havasu).

Take in the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show starting late January into the middle of February, said to be the biggest such show on earth.

The view from Gilbert Ray County Park, west of Tucson, only $20/night with water and electric hookup. Easy access to Old Tucson film studio, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Saguaro National Park.

You can count on a great sunset, just about every evening.

And if you can at all help it, don't miss a visit to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument for some of the finest desert scenery in Arizona, a great campground ($8/night with your Senior Pass) and really good jumping off point for a trip into Mexico. See post regarding trip to Puerto Penasco for details on an easy trip to Mexico. Located an hour south of Gila Bend on Highway 85, we frequently make it one of our first stops in Arizona and the last on our way north.

Organ Pipe Cactus NM is the farthest north home to this over-sized cacti, the signature cacti of the Sonoran desert. If you can time your visit to see the Organ Pipe and Saguaro blooming (any time from late April to early June, depending...) you won't regret it.

The blooms open at night and are gone by the next day.

Raw desert beauty in every direction.

The OPC National Monument was established in the 1930s. Several large cattle ranches were purchased and then allowed to revert to wilderness. There are only two loop roads through the monument, the rest only accessible by foot. The diversity and quantity of desert flora is unlike any other place we have seen in Arizona; which is a testament to how much is lost when cattle are turned out to graze.