Jones Water, Tonto National Forest, AZ

Jones Water is a lovely campsite on the other side of Globe from Oak Flat, in Tonto National Forest, AZ. The drive into the site is a shady unpaved road with trees overhanging, as you can see in the pictures in the slide show below. We stayed at Jones water for 3 days in late-March.
There are few campsites, and the sites themselves are all quite small, except for the one directly across from the bathroom. (The one with the table marked with the number 2). This worked out just fine for us, and made it so we didn't have reason to set up our privacy tent.

Much to our great pleasure, the restroom was extremely clean, and maintenance/ clean up people for the campsite came daily to clean out the restroom and they even took out a load of our trash for us.

Behind our campsite we found a very tiny stream (really just a few inches, both across, and deep, though it trickled along the entire length of the campground). The kids and dogs enjoyed exploring along the stream, and we saw and heard lizards, a small mouse of some kind, birds, and various unidentified critters near the stream. Early one morning, I heard something that sounded fairly large down by the stream, I imagine it was a javelina, since we saw javelina tracks. Though it could even have been a coyote; we also saw tracks and scat that lead us to believe there were coyote nearby.

When we went on a family exploration walk, we found that another campsite had a swing made from a rope and a stick tied in a tree, and the kids had a great time playing on that. The dogs found patches of grass to roll in, and we also found a neat "wash" type area with a big collection of river rocks, and some really interesting black sand.

While the experience really felt and sounds like a great time out in the wilderness, we were constantly reminded that we weren't all too far from civilization. While we weren't close enough to have cell phone reception, we were a LITERAL "stones throw" from the highway, and sometimes the amount of traffic, and the noise from it made it sound like just another day in the city.

Jones Water was not busy, as far as other people camping, as a matter of fact, there were no other campers while we were there, though there was one couple who came, made a campfire, and then slept in their car and left in the morning, The relative privacy was great for the dogs, who we allowed to run and explore, pretty much to their hearts content. The site was, however, busy for people using it like a quick pit stop. Stopping to use the bathroom, exercise their dogs, and just get out and stretch their legs. We saw so many people doing this, it doesn't seem like we were alone at the site much at all.

So far, Jones Water has been our favorite campsite, but that's only out of 3, so there is a chance we will like another one better soon enough.