Arizona recap

We have been back for a while and have had a bit of time to reflect.

We went out to the trailer a couple of days ago to get something.  Roxie said that she missed being in our trailer and I agreed.  That pretty much sums it up for us.  I don’t think we will have an issue spending extended time in the trailer.

We found out the truck will handle this trailer very well and get almost 13mpg doing it.

We found out that truck stops are a VERY viable location to spend the night although I hope we will be travelling such short distances that we won’t need them that much.

We found out how much we really like boondocking and it will come in handy in the future.

We found out that we like the Quartzsite area but there are some really interesting people there.  We might have even seen a naked guy coming out of a bookstore but we didn’t verify that.

We found out that Roxie can overcome part of her fear of heights.

We found out that Kmarts might not be the best choice for overnighting.  Have to stay with the 24hr Walmarts.

Here are a few shots that didn’t make it into the other entries.

Sunset south of Quartzsite:

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Our campfire from inside the trailer (didn’t turn out like I thought it would):

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Our spot in the 55+ RV Park near my mother:

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We are already planning and looking forward to another trip to the desert.

 

The road home

Our previous post we had just got to Quartzsite.  On our full day there, we started out a bit late (HEY!  We are on vacation!) and had some lunch in town.  We then went around to some of the rock vendors and others.  It seems in the winter there are many different vendors that hang out there and sell their wares.  There is an upcoming RV show that seems to be really big.  Glad in that sense that we left.

We got some firewood to have a campfire that night:

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It was a bit odd to be out with no one else close to us.  I think the closest RV was over 1/2 mile away.  Very quiet.  We have a sound machine that will play a waterfall noise (like white noise) and thought we would not need it out here.  We were wrong.  Not because of external noise but internal noise.  It was so quiet that we could hear the blood pulsing through our ears.  Very odd.

The stars were simply amazing!  Could even see the Milky Way at night.  We will be back sometime definitely!

Here is where we were, I think:

 

We decided to meander back home in a slower manner than usual.  One place that I love to go is Sam’s Family Spa in Desert Hot Springs.  We have been there numerous times.  It is a decent RV park but it has naturally fed hot pools that range in temperature from very warm to pretty hot.  A great way to relax at the end of the day.  It was only a 144 mile drive and very easy.  It was nice to veg out in the hot waters.

I mentioned to Roxie about Salvation Mountain and she did some research and we thought we might do that on our day in the Palm Springs area.  However it was over 80 miles each way.  So what to do?

That evening I asked Roxie if she was interested in going up the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.  I expected a flat out refusal and being accused of having some mental disorder.  Surprisingly she thought about it.  So the next day we were off to the tram!

Here is Roxie IN THE TRAM!  Do you see fear on her face?

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She felt incumbent to take one of me too.  I guess I shouldn’t be talking when a photo is being taken:

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We ate lunch wen we got to the top.  The Peaks Restaurant had very good food.  We had probably the best Caesar Salad I have ever tasted.  The food was a bit pricey but this was our view:

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After lunch we went outside.  Man it was COLD!  It was 45 degrees and windy.  We took another shot of the view and our first ‘selfie’ (have to work on these a bit…):

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After we got down to the warmer climes we headed to the Imax theatre and watched The Desolation of Smaug.  We didn’t make it back to the hot pools that evening but did so before we left the next day.

Where to next?