Hoping for dry, clear roads in late January

[Mark Sedenquist]

Keith, more photos to come.

Still a chilly day here

[keithg]

Awesome. Looking forward to seeing them. Air con going here.

Keith

[Mark Sedenquist]

Cocktail hour on the deck -- February 1st More photos later.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Sunrise Day #2:


More icicles ~ 20 degrees


30 minutes past sunrise:


Morning, temps up to 32 degrees F.:



Fantastic BBQ place in Village of Oak Creek and the view from our hotel room


Colt 804 Grill -- AWESOME ribs and BBQ mac-n-cheese!

Onto Phoenix today via the back roads around Beaver Creek.
A side trip from Sedona to Camp Verde:

[Southwest Dave]

Great photos, I love the icicles but they are making me shiver!! Enjoy the rest of your trip

Dave

[Mark Sedenquist]

More photos to come of the second part of the trip. Need to catch up on my day job first!

Mark

[Mark Sedenquist]

So, Megan and I have driven hundreds and hundreds of miles in Arizona over the last three decades and yet when we drove home from Chandler, we managed to drive on roads that we had never seen before!

This was the view from our room on the 10th floor of the Gila River Resort hotel looking NW or so on the morning of Saturday, February 4th. Nice hotel. Very friendly personnel.


We drove west through the Sonora Desert Monument on AZ-238 to the town of Gila Bend. We have many fond memories of Gila Bend -- but it seems the intervening years have not been too kind to Gila Bend -- so after looking around we head north along the Old US Hwy 80 that roughly follows the Gila River.

This is the route that we found where the Salome road turns to gravel just north of I-10:



This was a power plant we passed on this route:


Along the way we reached the historic Gillespie Dam Bridge near Arlington, Arizona. It is a mystery to me how we never knew about this bridge-- What a classic.
This is the approach from the east side


And this the amazing view from the midst of the bridge heading west.


After leaving Old US Hwy 80 we decided to drive along the Salome Road and very surprisingly it turns to gravel shortly after passing I-10. All was great until we hit a deep water hole and then had to find a way around the mud by driving around agricultural fields. I wish we had taken some photos -- but we were preoccupied with finding our way back to pavement!

Continuing our way to the NW -- we proceeded on AZ-72 through Bouse, (another place we had never been before) and eventually reached the Colorado River heading to Parker, Arizona.

Our next bit of road adventure was to cross the Parker Dam on the Colorado. Parker Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam that crosses the Colorado River 155 miles (249 km) downstream of Hoover Dam and the coolest part is that cars can still drive over it. Parker Dam creates Lake Havasu--Interesting fun fact: The dam face is 320 feet tall (235 feet into the riverbed) making it the deepest dam in the world!

So here are some views from that area:

On the west side of the Colorado after the Dam crossing




A bit closer to the dam:


This is actually driving west-bound -- pretty cool eh?


We drove across London Bridge and drove out to the point where it bends into the Colorado River and then drove along London Bridge Road and checked out some of the Arizona state parks along the river. Wow! They are really nice.

We jumped back on AZ-95 and drove that to the Toprock exit and drove around the bird preserve a bit before rejoining AZ-95 north of Needles and drove through the Mohave Valley. It is sorta of amazing to see all of the house development in the Los Lagos Golf Club area. And then made a point of sticking close to the river as we drove through Bullhead City. That took some doing -- but there are some pretty parks and a mix of homes along the river. After passing The Big Bend of the Colorado State Recreation area we reached Laughlin and then home to Las Vegas.

Lots of fun!

Mark

[Southwest Dave]

It always amazes me how we can always find a different route or attraction no matter how well we think we know an area. All you gotta do is seek !

Great report and photos that also reminds me of our unexpected visit to Gila bend and the small 9/11 memorial there that contains an iron girder from one of the towers, having had to detour because of snow and road closures.

Dave

[Rick Quinn]

Hey, Mark! I really enjoyed this; glad to see that some of us are out there on the road again. And you even discovered some cool stuff I hadn't seen before, right in my own back yard.

Happy Trails to all!

Rick

[Mark Sedenquist]

And I hope the upcoming surgery will enable you to get back out there soon!

mark