From Arizona to California (17th to 25th April)
On Friday 17th April we loaded “Foxy” our camper
again on the truck. This time it went much better than the day we loaded it in
Virginia with Ice on the road 6 weeks
earlier. The week to relax in Phoenix was a good time to reflect on all the
impressions from our first 5 weeks on the road. It is amazing how much you can
see in short time and how far a point in time seems if you experience new
things every day. Somehow we had experienced this on our backpacking trips
before as well, but 1 week there seemed like 1 month. Now 6 weeks seemed like 3
months.
First stop was a Car wash with RV bay we had found just
outside of Apache Junction on our way to the Roosevelt Lake http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60977-d2345001-Reviews-Theodore_Roosevelt_Lake_Marina-Roosevelt_Arizona.html
A couple of days after we had given Blacky a “bath” we took “Foxy”
for a bath and we got covered in pick
bubble gum smelling soap. Who knows what
that was, but it soaked in our skin, cloths and we had pink spots everywhere….
The drive to Lake Roosevelt was amazing. We did not expect such a nice drive through canyons, up the hill and down the hill to this lake with is 50 miles (75km) long and provides water to the whole Phoenix area in a artificial lake/ river / canal system through Salt River. It is a really popular recreation area for people living in Phoenix and they bring along all their toys (Jet ski, speed boats, etc) and its only 6 USD per day to stay in the park.
We arrived there on Friday about 3pm and we were amazed that
a lot of the spots of the “dispersed camping” where already taken. We found a
nice spot in the Bermuda Flats, a 3 mile long shoreline dry campground. It
filled up around us pretty fast and next day we had lots of neighbors: A red
neck family who brought half a tree for firewood and a inflatable palm tree to
drift in the lake, a Gay couple who came fishing and gave us their catch, a
nice rockfish (which was gone the next day – probably some crows took it L
which reminded us on our hike in Utah where all our food got stolen by some
crows, damn birds I can say), a young couple who came with their mighty powerful
8V speed boat, an unknown neighbor which
parked their rig there and did not show up from Friday to Sunday…. It was so
funny to watch all the people around and we got maybe a bit of too much sun.
On Sunday morning (19th April) we took the unpaved
road 88 back to Phoenix/ Apache junction
through the mountain. Blacky had his
first challenge going up and down the mountain got some scratches and we found
out Blacky can get even less than 10 miles / gallon but he was strong to pull up
that 11000 pound rig uphill . The first
part was kind of easy on Sunday and we arrived at the Apache Lake without an
incident. Instead of staying at the developed campground we stayed 100 yards
south on the dispersed camping (only difference – no water / no fire ring), but
we had a complete beach for US!!!!
On Monday, 20th April we continued Highway 88
back to Apache Junction. We thought on Monday morning there would not be a lot
of traffic (as the street was kind of narrow sometime 1 way only so you had to
wait at specific spots to let by traffic from the other side). The views where
amazing we passed along the different lakes, up the mountains, down again to
the next lake…. All with spectacular views!!! It was amazing… better than some
National parks!
On Monday we got out of the Roosevelt Lake area and stayed
for 1 night in the Lost Dutchman State Park back in Apache Junction on our way
to California. http://azstateparks.com/Parks/LODU/index.html
On the way to the park we entered in a "ghost town" where they showed how the city was 100 years ago... The views from this park where spectacular as well and we
enjoyed a relaxed afternoon/ evening with a nice hot shower J.
On April 22th we took off to California, but we first had to get veggies which are very cheap in Arizona. The trip was about 4 hours to the entrance of Joshua Tree Park and of course I forgot that you can’t take veggies to California so we had to smuggle them …. No problem…. We found a nice dispersed camping place for free in front of the park which we enjoyed which a nice couple we met from Seattle. On April 23rd we went into the park which went uphill for 7 miles and we were concerned not to have enough fuel for the trip through the park which was about 65 miles long. The fear was not necessary…. We had a couple of nice hikes and a bike tour in Joshua Tree NP and a beautiful campground which can only be explained by picture. The weather got worse again on Thursday 23th April so instead of staying in the park a night longer we went down to the famous Palm Springs. Found a nice RV park for affordable money (Palm Springs is expensive and you can spend easily 60-80 USD in a RV resort). Some of the parks did not accept us again (the want bigger rigs, min 25Feet (8m) long and NO truck campers…). Maybe we are too cheap for them? Our RV park was kind of old, but well maintained and had 3 nice natural hot springs http://palmspringsrvparks.com/dhs-desertpools.html The weather continued windy, so we decided to stay for 2 nights and enjoy the hot springs, play some pool (billard) and mini golf.
