Quick Trip to Arizona

Surprise, AZ
Happy Trails RV Resort


As I mentioned in our last post, we were practically out of time to visit with Steve's Dad in Arizona before we head east to Maine for the rest of the year.  We decided on a last minute road trip.  The weather in California was still rainy, cold and some snow so it was now or never.

So glad we went as we were able to meet up with Curt and Glenda just before they left Arizona.  We may see them along the way or in Maine later this year.

Curt & Glenda

We didn't do much more than visit with the in-laws, ride bikes, hike and geocache a little. 

Hurley cuddling up with Bunny.

We found a great geocache series nearby and had fun discovering those over a few days and some hiking along the Maricopa Trail.

 

 

 

Nothing like an Arizona sunset!

 

Another day brought us out near the White Tanks for more caching.  The sun felt great and all the blooming flowers and cacti made for a great time to be outside soaking up some rays.

 

Two weeks came and went quickly.  As we headed back home we decided to break the drive up into two days.  This gave us some time to stop in Quartzsite where there were still a couple RV friends.  Most have left and scattered to different parts of the US about now.  We're usually here in January with everyone, but it was not meant to be this year.

 

We met up at Beer Belly's for lunch with Steve and Dianne from Canada and Brock and Nathalie.

 

Like most of Quartzsite, Beer Belly's is a quirky, outdoor eating and entertaining area.  We had a delicious hatch chili burger.

 

One more geocache and we were on our way.

We've seen some clever caches like this one so we knew what to do.  Once you find it, you need to figure out what to do to get to the cache.  You plug the hole at the bottom and pour some water in the top, then the cache floats up.

The giant "Q" needs a little work.

I can't say enough, how pretty the drive has been these past few days in the desert.  All this extra rain has made for an explosion of color in the desert.  This part of I-10 was covered in beautiful purple!

Purple, and more purple all around!

Crossing back into California was a little confusing.  It was 5pm Arizona time.  Once we crossed the border it became 4pm and in a few hours, thanks to Daylight Savings, it will be an hour earlier again.

Those of you that drive I-10 have probably seen this.  There is this section that has a bunch of "headless" palm trees.  Don't know what the story is on that but there must be one.

Still snow on the mountains.

 

 We spent the night in fabulous Bakersfield :-)

We grabbed something to eat and a couple more caches along a bike trail.

 

 

Heading back into Placerville we can see the snow-capped Sierra in the distance.

 

 

 And guess what?  The weather for next week looks great!  More sun. That means we can finally heading out.  Only 2 months behind schedule.  Thanks Mother Nature!

 

We will be busy getting things ready and seeing the family once more before driving back to Arizona next week.  We're so happy that we don't have to cancel our reservation at one of our favorite state parks where we'll be camping with Greg & Cori.