even though palm desert is just south of joshua tree national park, it’s still a good 35 minutes or so to get to the south entrance of the park and a bit further just to get to a few of the maintained trails in the less populated area of the park. the north entrance is […]
derek
salvation mountain and east jesus.

we are currently staying in the palm springs, palm desert, coachella valley area of california. it’s mostly a resort community type of area, so lots of golf courses and shopping and fine dining. but just a bit down the road, the landscape turns into dusty desert and tons of agriculture (thanks to irrigation). tucked away, […]
random stuff from cottonwood, az.

we kept really busy during our cottonwood, az stay. when we weren’t exploring local monuments or at the grand canyon, we were driving back and forth to the dentist. we had gone probably a little too long without some proper professional dental care, so derek found us a spot and we got all the lidbom […]
THE grand canyon.

we were SUPPOSED to go to the grand canyon for a week after our time in zion in november. but some camper repairs came up and it was a long detour on our way to vegas, where we were meeting family, so we skipped it. then, when we started making our arizona plans for the […]
valley vista rv resortbenson, arizona.

after our stay in an unofficial 55+ community in mesa and hearing about how arizona is just chock full of snowbirds in the winter, i wasn’t super excited to head to benson, arizona. i was expected all the retirees to be grumpy about kids being in “their” park, and benson isn’t near a whole lot […]
tombstone tourists.

our current campground in benson is only about a half hour away from the iconic, old western town of tombstone, arizona. we figured it was worth a trip, so off we went…. our first stop was to watch a gunfight reenactment, complete with historical details. here we are, the full posse, waiting for the show […]
chiricahua national monument

our campsite in benson is an hour or so from four different national monuments/historic sites. since derek was off for martin luther king jr day, we decided to hit up chiricahua national monument to do a bit of hiking and exploring. the place was pretty amazing. a hidden gem of arizona. we took a short […]
saguaro national park

since arriving in the sonoran desert, we have been enamored with the giant saguaro cactus and couldn’t wait to visit the national park dedicated to the iconic giant. our spot in tucson was only about 30 minutes away from the west side of the park, so we were able to visit twice in our four […]
tucson (museum) time.

after we left mesa, we moved on down the road a bit to tucson, where we stayed in the driveway of a boondockers welcome member (in the middle of the desert) for a few days. there was so much to do in tucson, it was hard to narrow it down, but in the end, we […]
mesa miscellany. (plus some yuma).

when we parted ways with the grandlidboms, they headed back to nc, and we made our way to arizona. our first stop was in yuma, just across the border. we had a quick little stay in the front yard of a random strangers house, who we found via boondockerswelcome.com. (basically, it’s a subscription service that […]