Our 2026 Southwest trip started with a bit more “excitement” than recent years. Our RV broke down in the midst of the “winter storm of the century” in the Southern US. It led to a series of misadventures that we won’t soon forget. It’s summarized a post entitled “RV Misadventures 2026”. After getting back on the road, we licked our wounds, fixed our big problems, and went on to have one of the better winters we’ve had since we retired.
Yuma, AZ. The month in Yuma, AZ was just great. We spent time with good friends, including Deb Reisch, who visited for a week. The RV resort we stay at is the one place we’ve gone back to every year and it just seems to get more comfortable with each stay. We had a fair bit of RV work to do, but the time just flew by.
Palm Springs, CA. Due to a self-inflicted schedule mess-up, I ended up in Palm Springs with the RV while Suzanne went to Connecticut to see kids/grands for a week. We passed through the Springs several years ago, but this is the first time really exploring it. It is a beautiful and wealthy desert oasis with lots of quality hiking. The city has been wind powered for decades and, at one time, had more than 4000 in service. During my bachelor stay I went up to Big Bear Lake to determine if we could take our RV there. It’s a beautiful year-round paradise, but the mountain roads to get there are a bit on the hairy side for a 40 foot rig.
Mohave National Preserve. On our way to Sedona we stopped and hiked in the Mohave National Preserve. It’s a very large desert park just north of I-40 in eastern CA. We drove for more than 10 miles in it without seeing another car or person. It was a little eerie hiking with no one around, but it’s cool enough for a return visit to the parts of the park we didn’t get to.
Sedona. A return to one of our favorite places. We had perfect weather albeit a bit toasty, perfect accommodations, and perfect companions – Laurie and Marv Baker. We hiked an excellent assortment of trails, made the mandatory pilgrimage to Jerome, and hit some good restaurants. One of the highlights was a concert by Tyler Carson, AKA “Fiddler on the Rock”. He’s a solo violinist who plays a wide variety of music genres that is awesome and entertaining. A bonus was his backdrop of sunset among the red rocks of Sedona. Overall, the visit was great time in one of the must beautiful places on Earth.
Kanab. The Kanab area was the biggest surprise of the trip. It’s located on the western side of Utah on the border with Arizona. It’s a desert environment with mountains and rock formations everywhere. The town is small and unimposing, but with a “western” flavor. Our original intent was to stay there to hike “The Wave” rock formations. However, the demand is so great that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have a lottery to get in. We didn’t win a spot but decided to go to Kanab anyway as the area has a number of excellent natural attractions and excellent hiking trails. As it turned out, the hiking including a stunning slot canyon, was some of the best we experienced in years!
Navajo Territory. We visited Monument Valley during COVID and saw only the part of the valley you could see from Route 163. Everything else was closed off to outsiders by the Navajo Nation. Additionally, we tried to visit Canyon De Chelly National Monument a couple of times and were turned away for the same reason. This was our opportunity to fill the gap. It documented in more detail in “Navajo Territory 2026”.
