Desert Heaven in Phoenix, AZ

The drive from Tucson to Phoenix was a piece of cake and took us just over two hours. The desert landscape was similar to what we’d seen coming into Tucson, with saguaro cacti scattered amidst dry sand. What was interesting though was how many tumbleweeds we saw that day. It was a particularly windy day (we seem to pick all the windy days to do our driving…it makes it more exciting that way) and because we were driving through dry, flat land, tumbleweeds had nothing to stop them from swirling around the highway. I’d seen tumbleweeds crossing roads before, in cartoons and silly movies, and kind of always thought that the size of these things was exaggerated for comedic effect. BUT NO. These massive tumbleweeds, the size of wine barrels, would fly right across traffic, with no obvious trajectory pattern aside from the direction of the wind gust.

At one point, we were three abreast on the northbound side of I-10 and one of the dried bushes crossed into the shoulder, then stepped into the first lane, then meandered into our lane, thought about stopping there and then made a dash for the left-most lane where a Honda Accord was doing 80 miles an hour. It’s a good thing the driver of the Honda must have had experience with tumbleweeds, as he kept driving like there was nothing wrong and ran right into the tumbleweed, which EXPLODED like a snow bank all around his car. Since this thing is as fragile as hay there was absolutely no damage to his car, but let me tell you, if that had been me driving, there might have been more left to the tumbleweed than my vehicle.

After spending $20 a night to camp in the Tucson Mountains back in Tucson, we decided to look into free boondocking options in Phoenix. There is a helpful website, compiled by fellow travelers, that lists free or almost free places to park that have been discovered over time. We found several good options within Phoenix and finally settled on parking at the Casino Arizona. We picked the casino because it was on the east side of Phoenix, which according to Wikitravel was the safer side of town, and because it was not too far out of town. We got to the parking lot in the early afternoon on Sunday and were happy to see that we were by far not the only ones looking for a place to sleep that night. The parking lot had at least 15 other RVs and trailers. We were given a four night parking permit and also $8.40 in free food and beverage spending money. Not too bad, if you ask me!

Our spot for the night at the Casino Arizona

We had not expected to like Phoenix. I’m not exactly sure why, but it being the sixth largest city in the US (think Houston sprawl) and being in the middle of the desert, I think we pictured large tracts of highway malls, closed off golf courses, and loads of annoying, slow retirees sleeping behind the wheel. What we found instead was a clean and upscale city, surrounded by gorgeous mountains. The palm tree lined streets and abundant orange and lemon trees really reminded us of scenes we’d seen in Southern California. Manicured lawns, attractive shopping centers, well-built public parks, wide boulevards and nicely dressed locals reminded us of Orange County. I’d say in the five days we ended up spending in Phoenix and its surrounding communities, the city made a move into my top 10 cities I like around the US. Crazy, I know. Too bad the temperatures get up to 115 here in the summer.

Monday we spent walking around downtown. Downtown Phoenix offers lots of entertainment options from art galleries, to theaters, performing arts centers, museums, and several major league sports arenas. Its no wonder Phoenix now boasts the largest monthly art walk in the nation, on the First Friday of every month. We walked by the Orpheum Theater, St. Mary’s Basilica, and the CityScape Complex. At the visitor’s center we picked up hiking information and they recommended that we end the day with a hike up to the Piestewa Peak.

Herberger Theater in downtown Phoenix

St. Mary's Basilica

Piestewa peak is the second highest point in the Phoenix Mountains. There is a short 1.2 mile trail that leads from the base to the peak, but the trail makes up for what it lacks in distance with its elevation gain, with a total of 1,200 feet climbed by the time you reach the peak! The summit offers 360 degree views of Phoenix downtown as well as the surrounding mountains and communities. The city boasts that this trail is one of the most heavily used trails in the nation, with 4,000 to 10,000 hikers per week, and I would imagine that they are not stretching the truth. When we hiked the trail on Monday early afternoon, we had to fight for space on the narrow path with the many, many other hikers there with us.

Hiking to the Piestewa Peak

Views off of the Piestewa Peak trail

At the top of the Piestewa Peak

Downtown Phoenix view from Piestewa Peak

Views from Piestewa Peak

Tuesday we spent the afternoon walking around the Old Town district of Scottsdale. The district can be found on Scottsdale Road, in the heart of Scottsdale downtown. Main Street is lined with art galleries that have their own Art Walk every Thursday evening. If you walk east on Main Street it eventually turns into a pedestrian only promenade and winds up in a beautiful park setting surrounded by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, City Hall and the public library. The rest of the district is made up of old fashioned buildings which house cafes, restaurants, nick-nack stores and ice cream parlors. This was a very pleasant place to go for an evening stroll.

Walking around Old Town Scottsdale

Old Town Scottsdale

Wednesday we were itching for the outdoors so we drove northeast of the city to the McDowell Mountain Regional Park. On the way there we passed through the little mountain community of Fountain Hills. This was a super cute little town with a large park and lake in the middle of downtown. The lake has a world famous fountain (hence the name of the town), and this fountain spews water to a height of 562 feet every hour, on the hour. The Old Faithful-like spray can be visible from miles away and is quite an amazing site.

The fountain of Fountain Hills

Fountain Hills, AZ

We spent the afternoon exercising at the McDowell Park. The state park offers up over 40 miles of hiking trails as well a competitive single track trail race track for mountain bikers and runners. The collection of trails (sport, technical and long) that make up the competitive track can only be described with one word: EPIC. I ran the Sport and Technical loops, while Sky rode fast laps. It was one of those moments, straight out of National Geographic: running under pure sunshine and blue sky, in the middle of the Arizona desert, surrounded by mountains and cacti. The trails were well groomed, came with lots of turns, twist and drops, and plenty of elevation changes. I felt totally out of shape running so many hills, since I’d only been running on flat trails in Austin the past month!

The beginning of the Long Loop course

Sky biking at McDowell Mountain Regional Park 

Me finishing out the technical trail

After spending such an amazing day at the McDowell Park, we came home to our trailer to some bad news. While we’d been gone, our generator that was attached to our trailer, was stolen. Now remember, we’d been parked for free at the Casino Arizona, and we’d signed a waiver stating that all stolen property would be our fault. We’d only purchased the generator less than a month ago (thankfully it was the cheapest generator we could find, less than $100 at Harbor Freight), but still, it was annoying and frustrating that someone had the guts to steal it in the middle of the day, right from under our trailer! So, our four free nights at the Casino really ended up costing us around $25 dollars a night if you take into account the cost of the lost generator. Poop.

The next morning we’d reached our limit of nights at the casino (not that we were in any kind of mood to stay there longer anyway) and we booked one more night in Phoenix at the Apache Palms RV Park in Tempe. We spent the day walking the shores of the Tempe Town Lake and then went out for dinner and drinks in downtown Tempe on Mill Avenue.

Walking along Tempe Town Lake

Tempe downtown district on Mill Avenue

We definitely have plans to come back and explore Phoenix and its surroundings further. I've heard that there is some gorgeous country to be found just north of Phoenix, in Sonoma and the surrounding scenic roadways through central Arizona. Maybe some winter, when it’s cold and rainy in Portland we’ll book it down south to Phoenix and soak up the sunshine?

To see more pictures of Phoenix, click here.

Happy desert running,

M.