2021 campgrounds

Another interesting summary of 2021 — the places we stayed during the year.

I’ll start with buying our coach, then our Yellowstone trip in a rental travel trailer, and continue with our subsequent coach stays. For each location, I’ll include a link to the corresponding blog post, the campground map (if available), and a picture of our site. Enjoy!

You can also see all of the campground-related blog posts via the campsite category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Pasco / Tri-Cities KOA Journey in Pasco, WA, where we purchased the coach:

Campsite

At our homestead in Estacada, OR:

Coach at homestead

For our Yellowstone trip in the rental travel trailer; Grand Hot Springs in La Grande, OR:

Grande Hot Springs

Campsite

Twin Falls / Jerome KOA in Jerome, ID:

KOA

Trailer

Madison campground, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming:

Campsite

Jim & Mary’s RV Park in Missoula, MT:

Jim & Mary's RV Park map

Trailer and truck

Coyote Run RV Park in Connell, WA:

Coyote Run RV Park map

Campsite

Back into our coach, our first stop after leaving our homestead was Portland Fairview RV Park in Portland, OR (no blog post, so this is a newly-published picture):

Campsite

Mom’s place in the Seattle region:

Parked at Mom's house

Kevin and Julie’s Boondockers Welcome site in Chehalis, WA:

Campsite

Olde Stone Village RV Park in McMinnville, OR:

Coach and truck

Valley of the Rogue state park in Gold Hill, OR:

Campground info

Truck and coach in campsite

Heritage RV Park in Corning, CA:

Heritage RV Park map

Coach and truck in campsite

Coyote Valley RV Resort in San Jose, CA:

Campground map

Large site

Thousand Trails San Benito Preserve in San Benito, CA:

Campground map

Campsite

Truck and coach in new campsite

Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, California:

Orange Grove RV Park map

Campsite

Shadow Hills RV Resort in Indio, CA:

Shadow Hills RV Resort map

Campsite

Sonoran Desert RV Park in Gila Bend, AZ:

Sonoran Desert RV Park map

Campsite

Dry camping at Straight Line RV in Phoenix, AZ:

Coach

Black Rock RV Village in Salome, AZ (blog post coming next week):

Campsite

I hope you enjoyed this tour of our campsites in 2021!

2021 travel

Happy New Year! 🎉

As we begin 2022, let’s look back at our coach travel in 2021.

We bought our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP diesel pusher motorhome on September 2, 2021, and other than a few times when we’ve been out of it due to our Yellowstone trip and a couple of servicing appointments, we’ve lived in it full-time since then.

We’ve driven the coach about 2,300 miles in that time, on the west coast, from as far north as the Seattle area, and as far south as the Phoenix area (actually Gila Bend, not far north of Mexico). We’ve stayed in it in just four different states so far: Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona.

Here’s the map of our coach travels and stays in 2021, via the excellent RV Trip Wizard website:

Map route

If we include our Yellowstone trip, staying in a rental trailer, we can add Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming to the list of states:

Map route

You can see all of the travel-related blog posts via the travel category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

I thought it’d be interesting and useful to include a summary of travel days. I didn’t start blogging about them consistently at first, but over time settled into a pattern. Here are links to blog posts, and a sample picture of the view of each, so you can see how the landscape changed as we travelled in our coach.

Travel to Mom’s place in the Seattle region:

Driving

Driving to Southern Oregon:

Freeway

Video timelapse:

Into California:

Nice view

Video timelapse:

Travel day to San Jose:

Horrible road

Video timelapse:

To San Benito, CA:

Highway driving

Video timelapse:

To Bakersfield, CA:

Trucks on freeway

Video timelapse:

To Indio, CA:

Desert road with lots of dips, and Joshua trees

Video timelapse:

To Gila Bend, AZ:

Welcome to Arizona

Video timelapse:

And a timelapse to Phoenix:

To Salome, AZ:

Road

Video timelapse:

What’s in store for 2022?

We are looking forward to the Xscapers Bash in mid-January, then will head to Disneyland for Jenn’s birthday in February, to the coast, then back to Arizona, and the FMCA convention, then north into Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming to hit more National Parks. Then via Idaho into Oregon to visit doctors and dentists. After that, we’ll head north, then east, then south, heading towards Texas for next winter, as we slowly make our way across the country.

We already have reservations up till mid-June, but the rest of the year is subject to change.

Here’s the current route and stop map for 2022; starting from the Phoenix area, heading to the coast, then going basically clockwise:

2022 route

Still a lot more of the country to see, but we’re working our way across, with trips back to Portland each year. The maps for subsequent years will be similar to the 2022 one, but heading north from and ending up further east each time:

2022 route

2021 was an eventful year, what with the big transition from the homestead to coach. 2022 should be an interesting year, as we continue to explore. I hope you’ll enjoy following along via this blog.

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.

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:

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

Decorations

I had a margarita to drink:

Margarita

For an appetizer, we had a cheese stick tower:

Cheese stick tower

Then Jenn had a BLAT, and I had a burger; both were pretty mediocre:

BLAT, burger, fries

We had cheese- and bacon-covered fries, which was interesting:

Cheese and bacon fries

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.

Entrance

We didn’t realize it, but they had a big “Chihuly in the Desert” glass exhibit throughout the gardens; here’s an info sign:

Chihuly info

We enjoy Chihuly’s work, having encountered them several times elsewhere, so it was nice to see them:

Chihuly

Chihuly

There are of course lots of cacti in the gardens, too:

Cacti

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:

Jenn and David

Chihuly

Nice cuddly heart-shaped prickly pear cactus (my favorite kind of cacti):

Heart-shaped cactus

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Chihuly

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Chihuly

Flowers

Cacti

An indoor Chihuly exhibit:

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Chihuly

Cacti

Cacti and Chihuly

Chihuly

Funky top; a picture from the other side later:

Cacti

Dead:

Cacti

They had some demonstrations of structures from various desert cultures:

Structure

Cacti

Structures

The other side of that funky top cactus:

Cacti

Chihuly

We bought a little Christmas cactus at their gift store, to serve as our desert-themed Christmas tree in the coach:

Plant

Plant

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

We visited the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona, which focuses on desert plants.

The entrance:

Entrance

An interesting building:

Interesting building

Cacti:

Cacti

Cacti

A selfie:

Jenn and David

Rocks

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

Cacti

What they label as a lake, but I’d call a pond:

Pond

A shelter:

Shelter

Interesting tree bark:

Tree

Tree

Tree

Palm trees:

Tree

Rocks:

Rocks

Rocks

Rocks

A sketchy bridge:

Bridge

An Australian desert exhibit:

Windmill

Australian exhibit

Australian exhibit

Australian exhibit

Flowering cacti:

Flowering cacti

We bought a small potted cacti for our coach:

Potted cacti

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:

Map

Goldfield Ghost Town

We visited the Goldfield Ghost Town, a wild west town, established in 1893, and now an Arizona tourist trap.

Goldfield Ghost Town entrance

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

IMG 4353

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

Town buildings

At high noon (and hourly thereafter) they have a gunfight performance on main street:

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

After the gunfight, we went to the saloon for lunch:

Saloon

Saloon

Saloon

Me:

David

A “floozy”:

Floozy

I had a pork tenderloin sandwich and fries:

Burger and fries

Just as we finished lunch, the next gunfight was starting, this time involving the ladies:

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Gunfight

Horse riders, narrow gauge train, and mountains:

Horses and train

Train

We explored most of the shops, but the only things that appealed to us to buy was some tasty fudge.