Monday December 4, 20.1km/12.5mi
Gibraltar Wilderness Boundary (432.5/840ft) to Parker Travelodge (445.0/400ft) (AZ)
We left camp at 6:15am and hiked by headlamp for 30 minutes on dirt roads. We had one little ridge to climb up and over before we started our roadwalk into town.
Coming down the other side we could see the fringe of civilization.
TopShelf making the final push up over the ridge.
About a mile after we dropped off the ridge, we hit a residential area.
We were pretty close to the Colorado River and could see it ahead.
We last saw the Colorado River almost 2 months ago in the Grand Canyon, when we were on the Arizona Trail. Full circle! We walked on a street along the river for a few miles, and it felt very tropical with all the palm trees around.
At one point, we could even directly access the Colorado River and it felt quite warm.
We kept hiking and got into Parker at 11am, and our first stop was some fast food.
The McRib was back! I hadn’t eaten one in like 10 years and they were just as weird as I remember. After our meal, TopShelf went to a dentist appointment, and I walked the rest of the way through town to our motel. It was really funny to see a decorated Christmas tree next to some palm trees and a saguaro cactus.
When we leave this town tomorrow we will cross the Colorado River and enter California, it is very close!
I got to the hotel room at 3pm and had a few hours to relax, so I took a shower and watched some Christmas movies.
TopShelf arrived a couple hours later, and we were both starving, so we walked over to an amazingly good Indian restaurant. Naan and curry!
Each table at the restaurant had a cute little saying. Ours seemed quite appropriate to this hike.
On the walk back to the motel, we passed by a Pizza Hut, which surprisingly had a lunch and dinner buffet. I hadn’t seen these in years and I thought Pizza Hut had pretty much died.
Once we got back to the hotel we spent the rest of the evening watching some Christmas movies, and planning the end of our hike, which should be around Christmas Eve.