Good Times At Dead Horse Ranch State Park

On Sunday Kelly and I traveled about 90 miles north of Sun City West to the town of Cottonwood and set-up shop in Dead Horse Ranch State Park.  Wanting to visit a number of locations in this general area, DHRSP seemed like an ideal, centrally situated location to base ourselves before moving 5 hours(ish) southwest to California’s Joshua Tree National Park.

Our spot in Dead Horse State Park

Unlike the weather my family and friends in Minnesota, Wisconsin, & Illinois have been experiencing the past few days, Mother Nature has not waved her miserable wrath-of-winter wand anywhere here in the high desert.  Under brilliantly blues skies, daytime temperatures flutter into the low 60’s before giving way to cooler 30’s at night.  Factor in virtually zero wind – the “feels like” effect has resulted in my donning t-shirts, shorts, sunglasses, and plenty of sunscreen while enjoying delightfully blissful conditions.

For those of you freezing-off your tushes elsewhere, you’ll need to trust me that these conditions are quite enjoyable.  Too bad for all of you.

Kelly taking a refreshing reprieve from the heat

DHRSP is big, offers loads of multi-use (dog friendly) trails, spacious sites, and surprisingly clean bathrooms/showers.  The park offers water and electric, but not sewer.  Consequently we must display conservative water disposal into our holding tanks when not secretly “watering” the bushes outside our door.

Less the absence of sewer, the situation here is so nice, we cancelled our plans to visit Joshua Tree and we will be staying put through Saturday.

So what makes this place so nice you’re wondering … many things actually.  The park is mostly empty which affords us plenty of elbow room, we’ve fallen smitten for the hipster cool town of Sedona located just up the road, and we have blazing fast mobile broadband directing the internet into our laptops … enabling us to work remotely Thursday and Friday. 

I’ve added a few snapshots from the past few days below.