My visit was to the Cave Creek Regional Park (since there's no "official" description of what Cave Creek Rec Area is defined as, and the website link goes to an outdated Maricopa County webpage).

This is another great park in the Maricopa County Parks network, very similar to Estrella or White Tanks in design and layout, in north Cave Creek/Carefree area (take 32nd Street north from Carefree Highway and you basically dead-end into the park. . .

They have a large Nature Center with lots of desert creatures inside including a big fat rattlesnake, gila monster, black widow spider and some scorpions to safely check out up close, plus a big outdoor enclosure for a desert tortoise. The best part of this park is the outdoor theater seating for events and HUGE picnic area with paved parking, shaded tables, and even a basketball hoop. The camping area is the first turnoff, just inside the park, and has an RV dumping station and about 30 multi-use sites laid out in a big loop. One cool extra is that several of the sites have a 16x16 foot pipe corral on them, so you can camp with your horse without keeping him tied to your trailer overnight. They also have horse rentals just outside the park (seasonal, no summer rentals) and several events monthly such as guided hikes that you can find on their online events calendar.