Travel from Salome to Lake Havasu City, AZ

We departed Salome, Arizona and headed to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for the Xscapers Annual Bash. Our first coach drive of 2022.

Here’s the route map; just 83 miles, a couple of hours drive north in our coach:

Map route

Heading down the highway to Quartzsite:

Highway

Love’s fuel stop:

Love's fuel stop

We weighed our coach and truck again at a CAT Scale at Love’s:

CAT Scale

The weight was up a bit, in part due to adding more stuff, in part due to having a full tank of water, in preparation for dry camping at the Xscapers Bash. But still within acceptable tolerances:

CAT Scale report

Paladin wasn’t enjoying the trip, as usual:

Paladin

Heading north on the highway:

Highway

Highway

Highway

Highway

Highway

Highway

Road to park

Entrance to the bash:

Bash entrance

Sold out:

Entrance

Another Tiffin:

Another Tiffin

Paladin settled down:

Paladin

Backing in to our spot:

Backing in

We arrived a few days early, as Jenn is volunteering in the mail room. So there’s lots of empty space now, which will be filling in as everyone else arrives today:

Empty space

Our truck and coach in our spot:

Truck and RV

If you’re at the Xscapers Bash and see us, feel free to say hi. We’re introverts, and this is our first time at a rally, but we’re looking forward to it:

Xscapers stickers and badges

Stay tuned tomorrow for the timelapse video of our journey.

Black Rock RV Village

We spent the holidays at Black Rock RV Village in Salome, Arizona. (Campground Reviews listing.)

I thought I’d start adding some extra information about our stay, for future reference:

Dates: 2021-12-18 to 2022-01-06. Yes, I prefer to post about a campsite after we’ve left it.

Weather: sunny, a little drizzle, windy at times (gusts up to 30 mph), high temps around averaging 60°F, lows around 40°F, dipped just below freezing a couple times.

Noise: a bunch of side-by-side vehicle traffic, but no trains, negligible road noise.

Site: back-in, gravel, full hookups (50 amp power, water, sewer), large, about 80 feet long by 30 feet wide, with a hedge on the passenger side. No table or fire pit.

Internet: no Wi-Fi; AT&T okay, about 1 Mbps down, 4 Mbps up; T-Mobile unreliable, about 1 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up, when it works.

Amenities: mailboxes and mail room, cafe, pool, rec room, park, various outdoor games.

Here’s the (very much not-to-scale) map:

Map

A satellite view shows the layout better, especially over where we were staying. As you can see, a lot of the sites have park models or other long-term structures (park models are like tiny homes that can be moved, but generally aren’t, and aren’t self-contained, requiring hookups):

Black Rock RV Village satellite view

Entrance sign:

Entrance sign

Our campsite was quite large:

Campsite

Campsite

Electrical and water hookups; the ground is damp as I always run the water for a bit before hooking up, to flush any contaminants. I also had to use a short hose connector, as the tap was so low to the ground:

Electrical and water hookups

Campsite:

Campsite

Campsite

Campsite

“The first RV”:

The first RV

The first RV

This park is a popular place for side-by-side vehicles, being next to public lands:

Side-by-side

Office:

Office

This park is unusual in that it has a public cafe on-site:

Cafe

It also has mailboxes:

Mail

The mail room; we used it a lot, with packages from Amazon pretty much every day. Receiving mail is complicated when traveling the country; I should do a blog post about that sometime (if anyone’s interested):

Mail room

Collecting some packages:

Mail

They have a couple of desert tortoises, though they are currently hibernating for the winter:

Turtles

Rec hall:

Rec hall

Pickleball courts; one day we’ll get around to learning to play:

Pickleball

Bocce ball:

Bocce ball

Cornhole:

Cornhole

Swimming pool; apparently heated, but it’s too cold to want to swim:

Swimming pool

Charlie’s Park:

Charlie's Park

Charlie's Park

Charlie's Park

Community garden beds:

Community garden beds

Gate to BLM land:

Gate to BLM land

BLM land:

BLM land

Lots of vacant sites:

Lots of vacant sites

RVs

RVs

Park models:

Park models

Park models

 

Park models

Park models

Entrance sign at sunset:

Entrance sign at sunset

We were here over Christmas, and they had a parade of side-by-sides and other vehicles:

Christmas parade

Christmas parade

Sunset:

Sunset

We ate in the cafe several times:

Cafe

Cafe

Chicken fried steak, baked spud, beans:

Chicken fried steak, baked spud, beans

Mexican:

Mexican

Burger & fries, plus fish & chips:

Burger and fries

Telescoping ladder

Many RVs come with a ladder built in on the back, but unfortunately ours did not. Apparently the latest trend is to skip the ladder, so I guess our coach was ahead of the curve. Still, being able to climb onto the roof, or reach other high parts of the sides, is rather useful. Especially since the coach is 12’ 7” high.

So, another useful recent purchase was a ladder. A rather versatile ladder: it can be collapsed for compact storage, and extended to various heights up to 16.5 feet, plenty to reach our roof, plus can fold in the middle to make a two-sided A-frame ladder about 8 feet high, perfect for reaching up the sides. Yet it’s lightweight, at only 38 pounds:

Ladder

Here it is collapsed and stored in the back of our truck:

Ladder

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:

Map route

Paladin wasn’t thrilled, as usual:

Paladin

We were passed by a Tiffin Phaeton coach, and fellow Oregonians too:

Phaeton RV

Some pics of the road, desert, and hills:

Road

Road

Road

A stop for lunch:

Lunch

Continuing down the road:

Road

Road

Road

Our destination until mid-January:

RV park

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:

Coach

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):

Coach

We shared the yard with some fire vehicles:

Fire engine

Coach and fire engine

Coach

Morning:

Coach

Coach

Coach

Slides in, ready to head out:

Slides in

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.

What’s the difference between an RV resort, RV park, campground, moochdocking, dispersed camping, and boondocking?

In my posts about places we’ve stayed, you may have noticed some patterns in the names, e.g. Shadow Hills RV Resort and Coyote Valley RV Resort, compared to Sonoran Desert RV Park and Orange Grove RV Park.

You may have wondered, what makes some an “RV resort”, and others an “RV park”? (Or you may not.)

Well, places can call themselves whatever they want, of course, but generally an RV resort will have nicer facilities and amenities. For example, a resort would typically have large paved sites, compared to gravel for a park; a nicer pool and clubhouse; and services like garbage pickup from the site, where you just put garbage bags out front and they collect it, vs taking it to a dumpster, and propane refilling, where they collect an empty propane cylinder and refill it for you, instead of lugging it yourself.

A comparison; here’s our site at Coyote Valley RV Resort:

Large site

vs our site at Orange Grove RV Park:

Campsite

Both very nice, in different ways, but some differences.

Then there are other types, for example Thousand Trails San Benito Preserve I would characterize as a campground; a mixture of RV sites, tent sites, and cabins. A little more rustic than a typical RV park:

Truck and coach in new campsite

Similarly, state parks like Valley of the Rogue State Park I would also call a campground, also with lots of trees, and sometimes not full hookups (though in this case paved sites):

Truck and coach in campsite

There are other situations, such as services like Harvest Hosts, where companies let people stay overnight in their parking lot, and Boondockers Welcome, where people let RVs stay for a day or two on their property. (These two services have now merged.) We tried the latter a while back, at Kevin and Julie’s Boondockers Welcome site; they often don’t have any hookups, but this was a nice one, with power and water provided:

Campsite

A similar concept is “moochdocking”, where one stays on the property of a friend or family member. We did that at Mom’s place, with just 15 amp power:

Parked at Mom's house

There is also dispersed camping, where RVs can spread out on public lands, in designated sites. And boondocking, where RVs just stop anywhere (in authorized areas) on public lands. Those situations are dry camping, with no hookups. We haven’t done those yet, but plan to soon.

I hope this was interesting! A bit different than my usual posts.

Sonoran Desert RV Park

Our first stop in Arizona for a week, the Sonoran Desert RV Park in Gila Bend:

Sonoran Desert RV Park

Campground map:

Sonoran Desert RV Park 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:

Campsite

Campsite

Paladin in the doorway:

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:

Sonoran Desert RV Park sign

 The office:

Office

Cacti:

Cactus

Cactus

Ranch house activity hall:

Ranch house

Pool:

Pool

“Solitary confinement”:

Solitary confinement

Solitary confinement

Solitary confinement

Patio:

Patio

Dog area:

Dog area

Dog area

Dog area

Our campsite again:

Campsite

Campsite

Agave plant:

Agave

Quail sculpture:

Quail sculpture

Very nice sunsets here:

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

That factory is a Calgon Carbon facility, doing stuff with activated carbon.

Coach ground effect lights:

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!

Mexican food truck

Another sunset:

Sunset

Another night, we had some griddle burgers:

Sunset

Sunset

A nice campground; we’d stay here again.