Crossing the Desert to California's East Coast

The Colorado River divides the southern part of California from Arizona. It's a long hot trek to get there. At one point it was 118 degrees. By the time we arrived at the river to spend the night, it was down to 108.  The river is large and at Parker Arizona (where we stopped) it is primarily a recreational and party area. I liked it when I was younger, but now I just think that it's too hot, there are too many drunk people, and the noise from a multitude of fast boats going up and down the "Parker Strip" is very annoying.  As many of you already know, I love the desert for not only it's beauty, but for the people and odd things you see there.  Most of the photos that follow are random scenes that I saw on this, the first leg of our road trip. The pretty stuff will be posted later.

The other side of the river is Arizona. This is where we spent the night. Don't let the water fool you, it was well over a hundred degrees.

Big sky and big desert. This is the primary scenery on the drive through the desert. Hours and hours of this view.

Nothing remarkable in this photo except the awesome clouds. The part on the left looks like a mushroom cloud to me.

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There are a few things that are clear indication that you are in the desert or on the fringes of a small town.

Abandoned pickup trucks with the beds removed.

The pickup beds (now trailers) and/or camper shells. Bonus points if you see an old camper shell attached to the pickup bed which has now been converted into a trailer. I have many more photos of this, but that collage tool is very time consuming for an ADD person like myself.  If you haven't seen these sights, you need to get out of the city for a while.

I guess because there is very little to spray paint graffiti on, people have taken to writing names and other things along miles of railroad tracks. You may have to enlarge this to see it clearly.

Another view of the pricey real estate on the other side of the river. The properties do come with nice cloud formations and a big sky.

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The next post of our roadie will revolve around our stay at Page Springs in the awesome Verde Valley near Sedona.

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