We visited the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, about half an hour from our campground in Arizona:
Info signs:
Petroglyph rocks:
The adjacent campground has some picnic shelters, vault toilets, and dry camping sites. We couldn’t stay here, though, as there was no cell signal; we need our internet!
Brochures and shelves of books for campers:
We drove our pickup truck around a mostly unpaved dirt road within Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona. Enjoy a timelapse (with music) of the loop. How many cacti varieties can you spot?
We took a daytrip to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near the border of Mexico in southern Arizona, south of Ajo, west of Tucson, and east of Yuma.
The entrance sign:
Info signs; notice the loop on the right-hand side? That’s the unpaved road we drove; see below:
Mountains:
Info signs:
Mountains:
Cacti:
Visitor center, with an example of an organ pipe cactus:
A weird social distancing barrier inside:
We enjoyed a picnic lunch:
A hopeful raven kept an eye on us:
Info signs:
The aforementioned unpaved road we toured:
Lots of pictures of cacti of various sorts:
A stone arch:
Mini arch:
Another regional food place we visited for the first time (for me, anyway) was Cracker Barrel in Buckeye, Arizona:
It’s unlike most restaurants, in that you enter and exit through a store:
A very kitschy store:
We enjoyed the decorations in the restaurant:
The food was fine, nothing too exciting; I had a sampler with chicken & dumplings (kinda bland), meatloaf (not great), ham (fine), plus sides, and Jenn had fried chicken and sides:
They’re also known for breakfasts; we’ll try that next time we visit one.
Our first stop in Arizona for a week, the Sonoran Desert RV Park in Gila Bend:
Campground map:
Our campsite was quite large; long enough to park the truck either behind or in front. And in fact enough room to park several other vehicles, if we had them. We left our truck hooked up for a couple of days until we were ready to go out, then parked in front, until the last day, when we hooked it up again for faster egress the following morning:
Paladin in the doorway:
Jenn and I did our traditional walks around the park; some of these pictures are from each of us. Starting with the Sonoran Desert RV Park sign:
The office:
Cacti:
Ranch house activity hall:
Pool:
“Solitary confinement”:
Patio:
Dog area:
Our campsite again:
Agave plant:
Quail sculpture:
Very nice sunsets here:
That factory is a Calgon Carbon facility, doing stuff with activated carbon.
Coach ground effect lights:
Our first full day here, the campground owner sent an email saying they’d have a Mexican food truck visiting that evening; we partook of their services for dinner. Convenient!
Another sunset:
Another night, we had some griddle burgers:
A nice campground; we’d stay here again.
A timelapse of driving the coach 252 miles from Shadow Hills RV Resort in Indio, California to Gila Bend, Arizona. With music!
We departed Indio, California and headed to Gila Bend, Arizona. Another new state in our RV journey (we’ve been there before, but not driving).
Here’s the map route; 252 miles, a four or so hour drive in our coach. (That marker in the middle is where we’ll be spending the holidays.)
The first step for a travel day is to load up the truck bed with the outdoor stuff; it’s quite full, with chairs, rug, griddle, fire pit, propane tank, cleaning equipment, and other stuff. But great to have that extra storage:
Hills and part of the Colorado River aquaduct:
Paladin:
Being passed by another RV:
Date palm trees:
Arizona state line sign:
Welcome to Arizona sign:
Arizona centennial sign:
Quartzsite and Phoenix sign:
One of the first sightings of cacti:
Love’s fuel stop:
Yes, that top number is dollars; $295 for almost 69 gallons of diesel (nice)… less than half our tank capacity (150 gallons). Though we get a discount off that via our fuel card:
Desert:
Paladin:
Sitting in his box on the counter:
More cacti:
Stay tuned tomorrow for a timelapse dashcam video (with music!).
We attended a holiday zoo lights attraction, “WildLights” at The Living Desert Zoo in Palm Desert, California:
Santa:
Model trains:
More holiday lights:
Merry-go-round:
An interlude of live animals, starting with a mountain goat, wishing people would go away and let them sleep:
Vultures:
Antelopes:
Zebras:
Giraffes:
Holiday lights editions:
Selfie:
Of course a zoo in the Palm Springs area had a golfing Santa:
Light tunnel, with synchronized holiday music:
Light cube, with synchronized holiday music:
We went for a drive around Salton Sea in California, a lake with an interesting history: apparently created by accident from overflow of an irrigation canal, and has been slowly shrinking as modern farming uses water more efficiently.
Here’s a map of our route, going south first:
We stopped for lunch at a Mexican diner attached to a casino, then filled up the truck gas at a station that was mostly populated by ATVs:
The drive was just flat empty desert for most of the way south:
But with some farmland around the south side of the lake:
We stopped at Bombay Beach, which used to be a booming tourist destination in the 1950s. Nowadays, it’s a “living ghost town”.
On the beach, there are a number of art installations:
After our day in Joshua Tree National Park, we went to the Big Rock Pub in Indio, California for dinner. As their website says:
It’s like a Hard Rock Café, only better.
The entrance:
Some decorations within the entrance:
The pub is actually part of a public golf course, which can be viewed from the balcony seating, where we ate:
Me:
I had a glass of wine, and Jenn got a fancy cocktail:
Jenn:
Jenn had a pub burger and fries:
I had a margherita pizza:
I got my hat and long-sleeve shirt (and a shirt for Jenn) as it cooled down a bit. In theory I’m smiling in this picture, but it looks more grumpy than smiley:
Then they turned on the big fire pit next to us, and we were suddenly toasty warm:
Houses next to the golf course, with lit up trees:
Another decoration by the entrance, on the way out: a piano under the floor:
