Lisa
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Joshua Tree National Park – Mojave Desert
On day three in Joshua Tree National Park, we headed over to the northwest side of the park. Now we’re officially in the Mojave Desert, which is this cool spot that bridges the Sonoran and the Great Basin. And guess what? The unique plants here definitely include the Joshua Tree! There are tons more of…
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Phoenix Outings
During our stay at Lake Pleasant we made a few trips into the Phoenix metro area. Traffic was what you would expect for an area with over 5 million people, but the major roads we traveled had 6 lanes in each direction and we tried to avoid rush hours so didn’t have much trouble getting…
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Cottonwood and Tuzigoot
Visiting Cottonwood’s Historic Old Town Dead Horse Ranch State Park is just outside the town of Cottonwood, Arizona. The Old Town section is lined with shops and restaurants and the Iron Horse Inn. We ate a delicious meal at Crema Craft Kitchen and did some shopping. There are several places for public parking, and the…
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Iconic Sedona: Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte, and Bun Rock
Finally on Monday, I felt good enough for a hike in red rock country, which is less than half an hour from Dead Horse Ranch State Park. Sedona is a very busy town, so we suspected that the popular hiking trails parking lots would fill up fast. There is a shuttle system, but it only…
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Dead Horse Ranch State Park
After doing laundry at the clean and convenient laundromat at Rancho Sedona RV park, we traveled on to the Dead Horse Ranch State Park where we have a three-day reservation, all at the same site this time. Park’s name story The story of the name of this park is that a family was touring different…
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Sedona – red rock beauty
Trekking north on I-17 to Sedona from the Sunbeat Winery led us to some new Arizona landscapes. We saw our first “Burro Crossing” signs and encountered a grassland at the Sunset Point Rest Area. Other sights included hillside mining, pretty overpasses, and our first encounter with Flex Lanes outside of a city. And then there…
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Sunbeat Cellars
Time for another Harvest Host stay; this evening we will be in San Tan Valley, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix. We traveled north on Indian Highway 15 which is marked with arrowhead-shaped signs. We noticed many signs were tagged with graffiti, signs in a native language, roadside memorials that included brick and mortar structures,…
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Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Very near the Mexico/Arizona border is a National Monument formed to protect the only place where Organ Pipe Cactus grow in the US. They like a desert with a predictable rainy season and no freezing temperatures. They are more common in Mexico and grow larger there with this protected park being their northern-most range. The…
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Pima Air & Space Museum
Years ago when Tony and I spent a few days in Tucson, we visited the Pima Air & Space Museum, and thought it would be something my dad would love to see. How fun it was for us to hear about his knowledge, gained from a lifetime interest in aviation and decades of reading Flying…
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A Warm, Moist Cave?
Another fun day trip while Dad is in town with Sandy and David. Kartchner Caverns Kartchner Caverns is less than an hour away from Tucson, and has cave tours into a series of caverns that were discovered in the 1970s. The tours are accessible to all and have paths carefully laid out to protect the…