Escapees North Ranch

The Escapees organization owns eight RV parks and there are eleven other parks that are member owned.  The North Ranch RV park that we are at in Congress, Arizona is the third Escapees Park we have visited.  The other two were Rainbow’s End in Livingston, Texas and Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, Alabama.  Congress is about 90 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix.   This is a somewhat remote area.  Congress has a population of around 2,000 and the bigger town of Wickenburg about 10 miles away has a population of maybe 7,000.  Remoteness is one of the ways that Escapees holds down costs and campground fees.  Escapees parks are not resorts with water parks and golf courses, but they do have nice activity centers with plenty of activities.  We are up every weekday morning for the sessions with the DVD walking tapes

In all of the three Escapees parks we have stayed in, there are both campsites for transients like us as well as deeded lots that members have purchased.  This park has the greatest number of deeded lots at around 450.  Some people have only the very minimum of improvements on their lots and basically just use it as a campsite that they own for their RV when they are here.   From there, properties range from “park model” trailers, to manufactured homes, to frame constructed houses, that here mainly have stucco exteriors.  Some of the houses have stucco murals that are quite attractive.

There are a couple of common themes to all the properties here.  None of them have grass.  All the yards are some form of rock.  And the other common theme is that everyone landscapes with cacti.  There are cacti of all shapes and sizes all the way up to the giant Saguaros.  They have a recycle bin for aluminum cans the proceeds from which go to maintain the cacti on the common grounds.  And there are also the ever-present mountains off in the distance.