A timelapse of driving the coach 113 miles from Phoenix, Arizona to Salome, Arizona.
Month: December 2021
Travel from Phoenix to Salome, AZ
We departed Phoenix, Arizona and headed to Salome, Arizona. Our last coach drive of 2021.
Here’s the map route (going from right to left); 113 miles, a couple of hours drive in our coach:
Paladin wasn’t thrilled, as usual:
We were passed by a Tiffin Phaeton coach, and fellow Oregonians too:
Some pics of the road, desert, and hills:
A stop for lunch:
Continuing down the road:
Our destination until mid-January:
Stay tuned for a timelapse video!
Dry camping at Straight Line RV
The coach was with Straight Line RV in Phoenix, Arizona to replace and paint some basement doors, while we were staying at an Airbnb. They did excellent work; I highly recommend them.
They weren’t quite finished after we checked out of the Airbnb, so we spent the night in their yard:
Not a big deal; the coach is self-contained. And they even provided a 50 amp electrical hookup, so we could run the AC without needing the generator (they had kept it plugged in while working on it, to keep the fridge going):
We shared the yard with some fire vehicles:
Morning:
Slides in, ready to head out:
The electric door locks weren’t working quite right, but they went above and beyond to drive a three-hour roundtrip to our next campsite to try to fix them. It turned out to be a manufacturing fault with one of the small doors, so I decided to leave that as a manually-locking door, since I very rarely use that compartment. (They would have fixed it for us, but it wasn’t worth the hassle.)
Again, I highly recommend Straight Line RV for any RV body or paint work. They did a great job, and were very accommodating to work with.
Food: ComicX in Phoenix, AZ
We had dinner at ComicX in Phoenix, Arizona, having seen it on a list of places to visit in the area. It’s a superhero-themed restaurant with 36 locations in Mexico, plus this one in Phoenix.
The walls are covered with stuff from various movies, games, etc:
I had a margarita to drink:
For an appetizer, we had a cheese stick tower:
Then Jenn had a BLAT, and I had a burger; both were pretty mediocre:
We had cheese- and bacon-covered fries, which was interesting:
Overall, the food wasn’t great (and we regretted our choices), and the ambiance was kinda schlocky, as much as we enjoy superhero movies. The place was probably more aimed at kids. It was an interesting experience, so goal achieved, but we won’t be going back there.
Desert Botanical Garden
We visited the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.
We didn’t realize it, but they had a big “Chihuly in the Desert” glass exhibit throughout the gardens; here’s an info sign:
We enjoy Chihuly’s work, having encountered them several times elsewhere, so it was nice to see them:
There are of course lots of cacti in the gardens, too:
The little yellow boxes each contain a candle, for an evening event. There were thousands of them around the gardens. That’d be a lot of work to set up and light!
A selfie:
Nice cuddly heart-shaped prickly pear cactus (my favorite kind of cacti):
An indoor Chihuly exhibit:
Funky top; a picture from the other side later:
Dead:
They had some demonstrations of structures from various desert cultures:
The other side of that funky top cactus:
We bought a little Christmas cactus at their gift store, to serve as our desert-themed Christmas tree in the coach:
Boyce Thompson Arboretum
We visited the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona, which focuses on desert plants.
The entrance:
An interesting building:
Cacti:
A selfie:
What they label as a lake, but I’d call a pond:
A shelter:
Interesting tree bark:
Palm trees:
Rocks:
A sketchy bridge:
An Australian desert exhibit:
Flowering cacti:
We bought a small potted cacti for our coach:
The garden map; we only explored about half of it this time, but plan to come back in March, when more things should be blooming:
Goldfield Ghost Town
We visited the Goldfield Ghost Town, a wild west town, established in 1893, and now an Arizona tourist trap.
At high noon (and hourly thereafter) they have a gunfight performance on main street:
After the gunfight, we went to the saloon for lunch:
Me:
A “floozy”:
I had a pork tenderloin sandwich and fries:
Just as we finished lunch, the next gunfight was starting, this time involving the ladies:
Horse riders, narrow gauge train, and mountains:
We explored most of the shops, but the only things that appealed to us to buy was some tasty fudge.
Phoenix Zoo lights; Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Since it’s Christmas Day, I wanted to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. 🎄
We attended some zoo lights in the Palm Springs area earlier this month, but also attended zoo lights at the Phoenix Zoo. Which were quite a bit fancier. Please enjoy some holiday lights with a desert slant:
Bald eagles:
Flamingos:
Elephant:
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 🎄
Scorpion Gulch and Dobbins Lookout
We headed up the mountain near where we were staying, to the south of Phoenix, imaginatively called South Mountain. At its base is a photo op called Scorpion Gulch:
It’s the ruins of an old trading post and house:
Then we continued up the road:
To Dobbin’s Lookout, a viewpoint at the top of the mountain, with a nice view of Phoenix:
A selfie:
Pedal boats at Encanto Park
For lunch after the Japanese garden we grabbed some drive-through teriyaki bowls (first time we’d seen that as a drive-through option), and went to a nearby city park in Phoenix, Encanto Park.
We found a picnic bench with a view of a stream and a party on an island:
Our teriyaki bowls and spring rolls for lunch:
A palm tree:
We noticed some pedal boats going by along the stream, and thought that looked like a fun thing to do:
So we did; we rented a pedal boat:
We got some duck food from the rental kiosk, so we had fun feeding and watching them:
Birds:
More ducks:
The park is next to a golf course, so of course there are a bunch of golf balls on the nearby island:
Birds sunning themselves:
Another selfie from the boat; yes, we’re trying to do more of them; we haven’t historically had a lot of pictures of us together:
Hey look, more ducks:
Another couple of pedal boats:
One more selfie:
