02-13-2020 More Great Times in Arizona

Boondocking at the casino in Camp Verde had a little extra bonus for us.  We were parked just over a mile from Montezuma Castle National Monument.  In all my visits to Prescott and Sedona I had never managed the short side trip from I-17 to view the ruin.

Montezuma Castle is a well preserved ruin that is considered one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America.  Perhaps this is due to its ideal placement more than 90 feet above Beaver Creek on a sheer limestone cliff.  The precarious location and the five stories of floor space divided among more than 60 rooms indicate that the Sinagua people were skilled builders and engineers.  Access was most likely with portable ladders, making it difficult for enemy tribes to penetrate the natural defense of the vertical cliff.

The location also protected the people from the threat of summer monsoon flooding that deposited rich sediments for farming on the valley floor.  The people farmed squash, corn, and beans.  As Mo and I wandered the paved trail below the cliff dwelling among huge ancient sycamores, we thought about how the people would have had to keep the ground clear to keep the trees from encroaching on the farmland.  As in many other ancient sites, the people left in a very short period of time during the 1400’s.  It took some time for the sycamores to fill in the beautiful Beaver Creek valley, and they now provide lovely shade for what could be a hot walk in the summertime.

The walls of the ruin are stone and mortar masonry, built almost entirely from limestone found at the base of the cliff, and mud from the creek bottom.  The ceilings of some of the rooms were constructed of timbers primarily from the sycamores.

In addition to Montezuma Castle, the monument includes Montezuma Well, about six miles north and another ruin called Tuzigoot, several miles northwest. We didn’t manage the time to visit the other two locations, in spite of the fact that the Well is just minutes from my first destination for the morning.

For years I have been friends with a delightful man who somehow found me on Facebook when he read something I wrote.  John Parsons is a man of all seasons, and his wife Clair is the love of his life and a charming woman.  Whenever Mo and I have traveled to Arizona they offer a hookup site at their home in Camp Verde.  We have never traveled I-17 together, so didn’t have the opportunity to stay with them.

I posted a photo on Facebook of our visit to Jerome and within minutes John said, “You are just minutes from us!  We would love to meet you!”  Uhoh.  Caught!  I wanted to meet John and Clair, but with our trip drawing to a close and quite a bit more time socializing than we are used to, we hadn’t planned on checking in with them.  I called John and explained that we were pretty much peopled out and would it be OK if I came alone?  They understood completely, and bright and early I drove to their place for a visit on my own.

I’m so glad that I did, and now that the initial introductions have been completed, I am sure that the next time we are heading this way in Arizona we will visit.  The best fact among many that I know about John is that he was a river runner and guide and a great protector of rivers and watersheds. Just recently the 30 acres Parsons Riverfront Preserve was named for him. Such a well deserved honor.

I was home again by 10 am to pick up Mo and Mattie for our morning plan to drive the loop highway through Sedona.  I have been to Sedona, battled the crowds to hike the beautiful red rock trails, shopped the fancy gift shops and had great meals in the restaurants.  Mo had never seen Sedona, and I really wanted to share this lovely place with her. 

During the early morning hours of a mid week day, the roads weren’t nearly as crowded as I remembered.  The high season runs from about March when the winter warms up until May when the heat of summer begins. The last time I hiked in Sedona was in 2002, when the early September temperature was 106 F and I nearly died from heat exhaustion.

The day was to be a much simpler time.  We drove through town, with traffic and construction, and then north into Oak Creek Canyon where I wanted to see Slide Rock at the state park.  Slide Rock is famous for its beautiful slick red rock with the flowing waters of Oak Creek making an extremely popular playground in the summertime.  We arrived at the park to find that it would cost us ten bucks to enter, that the dog couldn’t go down to the water, and that in order to see Slide Rock we would have to descend 70 some stairs where the dog couldn’t go.  I hemmed and hawed for only a second or two before we both said, Nah….not this time.

We meandered back through town and I suddenly remembered the church.  High on a hill overlooking the red rocks is a truly beautiful chapel, the Chapel of the Holy Cross.  The road to the chapel from the highway isn’t too long, but quite steep and narrow.  Even on this weekday, the parking lot was filled to overflowing, and there is only a tiny turnaround at the top of the hill.  We thought we might have to give up on the chapel when a space opened up for us just a few hundred feet below the stairs that lead to the church.  It was meant to be.  The air was still cool enough that Mattie could wait in the car for us while we visited.

Such a beautiful site and a magnificent architectural marvel of stone and glass overlooking the gorgeous views of the valley.  A surprise just below the church that I didn’t remember from the past was a mansion.  I looked it up and all I found was “Mansion in Sedona”.  I guess there are many such mansions around in an area that is so beloved and so gentrified by wealthy people who want to live somewhere magnificent. 

So many beautiful places are now almost impossible to live in unless you are over the top wealthy.  Ah well.  I would have no desire to compete with the crowds and traffic in my daily life in order to live among the red rocks and famous spiritual vortexes of Sedona. Click on the link if you haven’t heard of the Sedona vortexes.

We were back at the MoHo, hooked up and ready to roll by 1PM.  Unsure of exactly where we might be headed, I started searching for campgrounds as Mo drove.  I was supposed to be navigating but wasn’t paying proper attention and somehow pointed to the wrong lane for the exit west to I-40 and we ended up going east.  Uh Oh.  We finally found a turn around and once again I missed the onramp west and we traveled right through downtown Flagstaff before finally onramping the I-40 several miles west of town.  I lost many points for my navigating skills that morning.

We settled on a Passport America campground in Kingman,  Fort Beale RV Park, still not decided on where we might travel the next day.  The night was simple, the campground was clean with level sites and decent hookups.  After boondocking for a bit, and knowing we planned to boondock again, it was good to have a place to take on water and dump the tanks before we headed somewhere west or north toward the Mojave Desert.

02/11 and 02/12 Meandering Arizona, family, Prescott, and Jerome

Ahh. from this -----

to this -----

After the open spaces of the desert at Quartzsite and traveling east along Interstate 10, we dropped into the greater Phoenix area and one night at a well located RV park.  Phoenix Metro RV Park was a good place to land, north of the city near I-17 and Highway 101, out of the main city and yet easily accessible to Mo’s cousin . Jim Ross and lovely wife Linda live in Phoenix during the winter and we sere surprised to realize that it has been 9 years since we last visited in 2011.

When we arrived at their charming home Linda was at an educational class on “creative reading”.  We were given a lesson by Jim on “creative remembering” as he took us to halls and rooms lined with literally dozens of photos of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  I have already forgotten how many there are in total, but something in the 40’s. 

When Linda returned home, we laughed and chatted as Mo and Jim reminisced about old family stories.  Jim is an avid genealogy buff and has tracked the family back through many generations.  He loves to tell the story of the distant uncle who was hanged in North Dakota for something or other.  Always have to find a black sheep somewhere to keep it interesting.

With their home in a lovely resort area, it was an easy walk to a nearby restaurant for supper.  Aunt Chilada’s Restaurant is located in a lovely hacienda like space that has been around since the 1800’s and is family owned.  Last time we visited in 2011, it was much warmer and we enjoyed dinner on the patio. This time it was too chilly to eat outside, and the hostess who knew Jim and Linda very well took us to the back of the restaurant to the best table in the house, right in front of the huge blazing and warm fire.  Perfect.  Our dinner was perfect as well, and we had delightful leftovers to carry us through the next day at our next boondock site.

It was dark when we returned to our home in the RV park, a perfectly decent place to land for just one night, but there were many people who obviously lived there for long periods. The homes were reasonably spaced, and you could tell who was permanent by the large pots of cactus and palms in their tiny yards.  There was a small dog park for Mattie, filled with logs and rocks and dirt piles, which kept her quite happy.

As we drove into town the previous day, we saw a thick blanket of snow on the mountains to the north.  UhOh.  Our original plan was to drive north on 17 toward Flagstaff, and find someplace to boondock as we continued west on I-40.  The snow scared us a bit and when it came time to leave the next morning, we started west on the 303 thinking we would return to Quartzsite.  North of us, however, the brilliant sun beckoned, and the snow seemed to have completely melted except for the highest elevations.

At Peoria, we turned back east toward I-17 and followed our original destination north.  Perusing our memories as we traveled, it was clear that Mo had never been to either Prescott or Sedona.  She did have some vague memories of visiting Jerome.  We decided it was time to meander north and figure out where we might stay as we traveled.

With AllStays, we found the possible boondocking site at the Cliff Castle Casino in Camp Verde, and decided that it would be a great place to park and then take the Tracker to explore Jerome and Sedona.  On the way, though, we traveled back west over the hills into the Prescott area. 

I had memories of the beautiful Courthouse Plaza in Prescott and knew that Mo would love the historical cowboy vibe there.  As we drove the 6 lane traffic filled roads through Prescott Valley into Prescott, I was aghast as how much the area has changed since I last visited in 2004.  Goodness!

We meandered all the way into Prescott, past huge shopping malls and every box store that exists, into the lovely historical area that is bisected by very narrow streets all jammed with angled parking.  It was a bit scary for the MoHo mirrors as we tried to find someplace to park where we could walk the inviting downtown area.

It was not to be.  There was no place to park anywhere that we could find, and if there was any kind of city parking lot for large vehicles, we never saw it.  Instead we traveled north toward Watson Lake County Park, where I hoped there would be some kind of turnaround for the MoHo.

There was still a bit of snow on the roadsides as we entered the park, declined to pay the day fee of $3.00 because we weren’t even sure we would stop, and continued up to a large parking area where there was enough room for the MoHo to turn around.  whew. 

Watson Lake was beautiful in the morning light, reflecting the magnificent weathered granite boulders that are the hallmark of the area.  March or April would be a great time to visit, perhaps a bit warmer and yet still enough water in the dammed lake to launch our kayaks.  It looked like just the kind of place we love to kayak.

We continued back north on 89A, which routes over the very steep and curvy Mingus Mountain road down into Jerome and on toward Camp Verde.  Mo was a bit frustrated with me because I resisted taking that road and instead routed us back to I-17, a few miles farther than route 89 would have been.  For only a moment, I thought about all the driving we have completed safely on Highway 1 on the California Coast, and yet still my memories of 89A into Jerome were ringing very loud warning bells.  Later, as we traveled through the town of Jerome, Mo was more than happy that we hadn’t made the attempt to do that road in the MoHo.

Once we arrived at Camp Verde and the casino, we settled into a lovely spot on the hill behind the parking garage, helped by the friendly guy in a little cart that showed us where to park.  We decided that it was cool enough that we could take Mattie with us on our visit to Jerome, so locked up the rig and took off west toward the tiny mining town.

Jerome is fun to visit, if you are prepared to walk steep streets and don’t have a problem with heights or vertigo.  The history of the  famous copper mining town built on a sliding hill is long and complex, too much to write here.  If you have visited, you know it, if not you can read about it here.

We found a parking place, cool enough for Mattie to wait for us, and started walking.  There are some amazing galleries and gift shops, a beautiful hotel high on the hill, and lots of things to see.  Two sticks served me well, and I managed to get up the steep streets for the art and the views. 

We had arrived late enough in the day that many of the shops and coffee shops were closed, but one beautiful gallery filled with a great variety of local art was still open.  We asked the owner about someplace to get a coffee, and she suggested that we have a cocktail with a view at the historic hotel at the top of the hill.  On the way back to the car however, we were seduced by Paul and Jerry’s Saloon.  One of the oldest family owned bars in Arizona, it was funky and fun, with a great old wooden bar with marble counters, and a bartender in white shirt, vest, and sleeve garters.

We ordered Irish coffees with Baileys and Jamison and lots of whipped cream.  Yummy.  And strong.  A bit shocked at the ten dollar price for each drink, we laughed, listened to the great music coming from the speakers above us, and talked with the bartender and other locals who had some fun stories. We had a great time, and the drinks were less than we would have spent if we had decided to entertain ourselves at the Casino in Camp Verde.

Returning home just before dark, we heated up our yummy Mexican leftovers from the previous day and settled in for an early night.  Sometime around 8, with us in pajamas, there was a knock at our door.  A security person said we had to move down the hill to the lower parking lot.  Really?  Mo, in her most kind voice said, “Oh, that nice man in the cart told us we could park here and even helped us park.”  The guard relented almost immediately, “Oh OK,” he said.  yay.  We didn’t have to put on clothes and pack everything up to move a few hundred yards. 

The night was lovely and quiet if very bright, although the brightness didn’t bother us.  We have enough protective shades in the MoHo that we were able to travel weeks in Alaska with midnight daylight, so a night at a brightly lit casino was a piece of cake.

03-24-2019 to 03-28-2019 The Home Run

Current Location: Sunset House in Grants Pass, Oregon

Overcast, light rain and 59 degrees F at 5 PM

We are home.  Still tired, still recuperating a bit, still finishing up the list of “to-do’s” that I put together in the calendar once we arrived.  Ten weeks gone does allow certain chores to accumulate a bit.  Debris from the trees.  Grocery shopping to refill the coffers.  Laundry, always laundry. Wash the car, wash the MoHo,  schedule appointments, doctors, dentists, eye care, oil changes….I should probably stop here. Except there is a big one on the list, waiting in the corner, whispering to me until I get it done.  “Write that last blog about the trip home”.  Of course, there is still another one to be written about Saint Augustine, the one detailed post that I didn’t manage to complete while we were on the road, but the Home Run is the one that is hanging over my head like too much laundry.

Does that sound like fun?  Do I sound tired?  I am hoping that slipping back into the writing mode after a few days here at home will rejuvenate my mind and I’ll be able to write something that will be fun for me to read a few months or years from now, and hopefully fun for others to read once I get it posted.

I allowed Google Maps to know where I was on this trip.  I know, a privacy issue, but still it is a very impressive collection of data.  Check out the map of our travels during the last 2 and 1/2 months.  We traveled just over 7,400 miles, spent 66 nights on the road, 29 days driving.  For those interested in stats, we spent $5,172 total, with a total of $2100 on fuel, averaging 8.5 mpg and $2.41 per gallon for 87 minimum octane.  That 85 octane stuff is cheap, but not good for our rig.  We spent 8 nights with free camping, including friends, Cracker Barrel’s, boondocking in a truck stop, and a free city park.  We spent 24 nights in Military Family Camps, 17 nights in private RV parks, 15 nights in state parks, and 2 nights in a National Park. Camping costs averaged $20.06 per night when including our free nights.

We had a wonderful trip overall, and there are amazing moments that we will treasure always.  I will never forget kayaking with manatees on the Ichetucknee River, seeing the rainbow blues and aqua colors of the Rainbow River, one last long magical paddle on the Silver River, paddling beside huge alligators in the Okefenokee.  I will always remember visits with friends and family along the way, beautiful vistas of deserts, mountains, rivers, forests. I will remember some lovely warm winter days, Florida velvet air, white sands, clear water at the beaches, ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss. I will fondly remember great meals with friends, and sweet tender pink gulf shrimp melting in my mouth.

I will also remember a lot of days waiting for weather to change so we could “do something”.  I will always remember the tire blowout over the swamp on the Atchafalaya Bridge, and somehow I will always remember all the dang navigating through more than 15 sets of big metro area freeways. 

It is a long way from the Southeast part of this country to our home here in the Northwest, no matter how you route the trip.  I was ready to be home clear back when we left Arkansas.  The distance between where we were and where we were going seemed interminably long.  Still, I didn’t want to miss our planned visit to Colorado Springs and Denver, and am so glad we didn’t succumb to skipping that part of the trip.

Still, once we left Colorado Springs on the morning of March 24th, there was no stopping us.  Sightseeing was dropped to the very minimum.  Photos limited to whatever I could manage to shoot from the sometimes very buggy windshield.  The days punctuated by driving, each of us taking turns for a few hours, and then stopping to eat, sleep, and wake up to drive again.

396 Miles from Peregrine Pines USAFA campground to Kirtland AFB campground on March 24

On our first day, in spite of that desire to get home fast, we succumbed to a side trip.  The plan was to travel south on I-25, Colorado Springs to Albuquerque.  Instead, as we passed the small town of Colorado City, Mo saw a sign for Highway 160, heading due west over the mountains north of Spanish Peaks.  I panicked for a moment, wondering if we were heading for some crazy Colorado high mountain pass, but a quick look at Google Maps made it seem ok, and checking the weather app as Mo headed west on the nice 2 lane road eased my fears a bit.  We would be fine.

The drive turned out to be gorgeous, with high snow covered peaks all around us, historical towns along the way as we approached Taos and Santa Fe, and once more navigated the freeways from one side of Albuquerque to the other for a night at the Kirtland AFB Family Camp.

Morning was a bit of a respite, with a great visit with friends Mary Ann and Gail.  We had breakfast at Vick’s Vittles, just a mile from the base, where we shared 25 years or so of memories and some true New Mexican food.  I had pancakes made from blue corn flour, with green chilis, cheese, and pine nuts.  Perfect. 

301 miles from Kirtland AFB campground to Meteor Crater RV Park on March 25

After breakfast we headed west toward Flagstaff, planning to stay once again at the small private park at Meteor Crater where we camped back in 2007 on our first cross country motorhome trip.  The day was long, but we still managed to settle in without any trouble to the comfortable campground in time for afternoon sunshine walks with the dog, and a decent supper of leftovers.  I knew we would be traveling hard, and made sure I didn’t have to do a lot of cooking for that home run.

426 miles from Meteor Crater RV Park to the Kramer Junction on March 26

We left early the next morning, with a bit of a kerfuffle trying to find propane for the cold nights we expected, and finally filling up at more than 3 bucks per gallon at the Love station in Williams. 

The drive from  east of Flagstaff west through Barstow toward the infamous Kramer Junction in California is a bit of a blur.  Kramer Junction isn’t much except for a few gas stations and parking lots for the hundreds of trucks that pass through this spot heading east toward Interstate 40 or north or south on Highway 395.  We had debated returning home once again on 395, as we often do, but the weather didn’t cooperate, and Mo said, “Why in the world are we messing around with that route?  Let’s just get over the mountain and head home up 99 and the 5.”

Our night at Kramer Junction was beautifully quiet, in spite of the many trucks that joined us during the night.  Daughter Deanna, who is a trucker, said that California has strict rules about idling engines, and we only heard the very quiet gentle hum of a few truck generators.  In the middle of the wide open desert along a busy highway it felt safer to be here in the truck stop than alone somewhere along the road.  It was a good night.

339 miles from Kramer Junction to Flag City RV Resort on March 27

Waking to cloudy skies but no really bad weather predicted for the next leg of the journey, we headed west over the pass through Tehachapi and decided to travel north via Highway 99 rather than farther west along Interstate 5.

That choice varies, and it is always a crap shoot as to which road will have more potholes.  We got fairly lucky, and didn’t have much trouble with the rain holding off most of the afternoon until we arrived at Flag City RV Resort, our trusty stop that is almost always our last stop before home on our southern sojourns.

We settled into our nice level spot, hooked up the electric and the TV, walked the dog, and spent one last night on the MoHo bed before our last leg home over the passes.

371 miles from Flag City RV Resort to home in Grants Pass on March 28

I looked at the weather apps and hoped that we could slip in between the snow storms predicted along our route between Redding and Grants Pass.  I have no idea why these snow storms always show up around the end of March or 1st of April, but it seems that we have navigated bad weather on these return trips in early spring.

Once again, we got a bit lucky, with the worst of the weather hitting us around Dunsmuir and over Mt Shasta, before we got a bit of a rainy break as we approached the summit over the Siskiyous and into Oregon. In spite of all we have seen across this amazing country, there truly is no place like home. 

The mountains and hills around Ashland are green, the earliest flowering trees are blooming in their pink and white set off by brilliant yellow daffodils.

Here in Oregon, spring is just beginning. We had two gorgeous days of sunshine when we returned, giving us just enough time to get the rigs washed and to settle in before the rains began once again.  In spite of the rain, the air feels soft and not terribly cold, the grass in the pasture is a gorgeous green, long enough that it is time to mow once it dries out again.

Walking into the house was amazing, and we both wondered why it still smells “new” even after 18 months.  Maybe the wood floors?  It was wonderful knowing that all was well with the help from daughter Deborah watching over the house while we were gone.  The bird feeders were full, the primroses were blooming, the house felt fresh and clean and yes, roomy! 

The bath in my deep soaking tub was long and hot, and the bed felt huge.  It was wonderful setting the thermostat to the perfect temperature and not having to think about it again.

I love traveling, but oh I do so love coming home again.  Things that I can take for granted in everyday life loom huge and wonderful when I have been away from them for weeks at a time.  It is the perfect combination of going and staying, of traveling and nesting that I love.  We feel so incredibly lucky to have a chance to live like this, to enjoy the very best of both worlds.  We also feel incredibly blessed and lucky to be home safe and sound with no huge disasters to contend with while we were traveling.