Dateland, Arizona

- Hey Erica, how about a date?

And thus was conceived a stop in the otherwise forgettable desert outpost of Dateland, Arizona. True to its name, the town is famous for its dates ... (for growing dates) ... and for poking fun of its own name. I wish I had more to say about this place... let's see... 20 minutes was plenty of time to see all of Dateland; I had a date shake... we took some funny pictures. I'm pretty sure twenty minutes is enough to drive around Dateland at least three times. Pictures really are worth a thousand words, as I'm clearly struggling to come up with appropriate words to describe this bit of Arizona oddness:

Thanks for choosing Dateland - Be safe. Practice safe dating?

Dateland, what a great place to get off! Giggle.

The sign above would lose some of its charming humor had they simply been consciously making fun of themselves. 'Dateland, Home of the Cougars,' however is entirely unintentional and, thus, entirely, overwhelmingly hillarious!


And thus continues our whirlwind tour of the odd, weird, unusual, and non-sensical bits of the State of Arizona. There were many spots that fit into this category - Dateland was easily my favorite to visit!

Arizona ... Welcome to the Stream of Nonsense

Arizona... it is absolutely a gorgeous place. Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Lake Havasu - all lovely. All weird in their own right, but in wonderful, natural ways. Most of the rest of the state? Stream of Nonsense, for no good reason that I could figure out. Take Yuma - it's a roasting hot, dust-filled, inhospitable little spot lying right where California, Arizona, and Mexico come together. Does it have much of anything going for it? Not as far as I can tell. Yet, just as you start approaching it, you find yourself confronted with vast trailer park encampments filled with hundreds of Snowbird RV's... These would be Northernly retirees who have chosen Yuma, Arizona as an ideal place to spend the winter months. Nonsense, I tell you, Nonsense! At least, the little restaurant where we popped in for lunch had been rated as the best place to propose in Yuma... so the town's got that going for it(?) There's also a sushi restaurant we spotted near the highway... nothing quite like sushi in the Arizona desert to make you visualize horrible and immediate food poisoning... We chose to steer clear...

A bit more of the stream of nonsense, in pictures:

An Arizona Cactus snake

A native Southwestern Dragon

Yuma-tainment

What to do for fun down here

Really, you just can't make this shit up!

And finally, the Arizona coup de grace:

Mark your calendars!

Catch the Gun Show sign in the bottom right?

A bit more detail about the AZ stream of Nonsense in the next couple of posts... And I'm even going to meticulously avoid mentioning any Congresswomen getting shot...