Dateland AZ and Why I Don’t Stay in Truck Stops

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Finally Leaving Highway Arizona 95

I have been cruising highway 95 in Arizona on and off for 2 months. Besides the jaunt to California I found myself in Bullhead City and Lake Havasu for the holidays. Then I lingered in Lake Havasu to hike and get work done. Then I finally moved a further south to Quartzsite and Kofa National Refuge. Then finally Yuma to visit my friend Jan.

Whew!!! Adios Highway 95! I’m heading east.

As I type I’m actually siting in my least favorite type of spot – a travel center. Well, my least favorite is a truck stop. I’ve only stayed in one truck stop and plan to never do it again.

Here’s how the stay in the truck stop went down:

I was exhausted one night coming from Colorado to New Mexico and couldn’t find anywhere to stay along highway 40. I made the difficult decision to sleep amongst the big boys!

I don’t like doing that for 2 reasons.

One, truck drivers need to stop for work. If I take a spot, then a truck driver may have no place to stay if they’re tired and sleepy. That is not good.

Two, it’s noisy! Those big rigs with refrigeration run generators all night. Plus, since this is a work stop some drivers like to park for a short break then move on, so all night long trucks are coming and going.

This can also be true for rest stops but I’ve become quite def to the sounds the trucks make. It’s almost white noise to me.

Despite these 2 reasons, I was dog-tired and needed to rest. I backed into a corner (trying my best to not get noticed) and cruised out as early as possible the next morning.

Needless to say, I try to avoid truck stops.

One Hour from Yuma

Today was a busy day for me. Since I started blogging I need to have a great signal, whether WiFi or 5G on my phone to work online and schedule blog posts out. I left Jan’s place and hit Starbucks.

I’ll usually tote all my work tools in to sit with a coffee and pastry for a few hours. Yet this time I realized I had an excellent 5G signal, so I decided to hotspot my phone with my laptop. I sat in the parking lot for 7 hours.

And as usual, I ate what I didn’t want to – Starbucks and 5 Guys Hamburgers. They were yummy but I’ll surely need a huge salad for dinner to cleanse.

I’m staying the night at Dateland Travel center, just about 1 hour outside Yuma. I use Campendium to find where the cool places to stay. There were 2 great reviews from fellow RVers about this place. I love when I see great reviews, I just feel safer staying there.

This is a nice place. There’s a huge dirt lot for travelers to rest and so far, at 9PM, only one big rig is parked here. Ah! It’s a little quiet.

There’s also a mini mart that I’ll hit for coffee in the morning. I like to support the establishments that let me stay for free.

Tomorrow I dump my tanks and head south to BLM just outside Pipe Organ.