We were able to make reservations at the Desert View campground, at the east end of the South Rim of Grand Canyon NP. Shelly thought she was reserving a back-in spot, but found her door right to the road. Oh well, the places were all booked, so we were lucky to get this spot. We tried out the DVD player the first night (The original Fahrenheit 451), which, along with charging our phones in a low/no reception area took our battery down to 95%. But we got up before dawn to get some good shots of the canyon, and put out the solar panel when we got back, for an hour or so while we made, ate, and cleaned up after breakfast, and were above 99% by the time we folded her up and went out for the day.
Desert View had flush toilets, which I only mention because we spent the second two days at Ft Tuthill County campground, south of Flagstaff
The photo shows all of the amenities offered at this campground. Our only real complaint is that the boxes were on the verge of needing pumping Friday, and by Sunday... Ah well!
On the way down from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff, we took a detour through Wupatki and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monuments. Not particularly well known, but well worth going through if you are in the area. Wupatki has old indian ruins
and Sunset Crater is a--well, volcano--but also a great place to stop for lunch
South of Flagstaff, we spent an hour at the Ft Tuthill museum, dedicated to the Arizona National Guard unit formed there in the 1930's and whose descendant unit served in Afghanistan recently
They just opened and can use the support. The museum itself includes two of the barrack buildings, and has displays from pre-WWII on up. An interesting bit I learned is that the unit wore a swastika, an American Indian symbol, until the Nazis ruined that in the late 1930's.
We went on to look at Montezuma Well and Montezuma Castle National Monuments
and Fort Verde State Historic Park, which preserves a fort from the 1880's
We did not go into Red Rock State Park, but took some interesting evening pictures of the same skyline they advertise
We had lots of positive comments on our teardrop
and a few admonitions to drink plenty of water, or else!
Unlike Tony, we don't carry a rubber snake (yet), so we weren't too concerned about these rules
although we admire the discipline of the Park Service for attempting to enforce the rules on the snakes.
We forgot lunch one day and got severe sticker shock from a MacDonalds near Camp Verde (our first time eating McD's in well over a year--is COVID inflation really that bad?!). Sedona is a tourist trap, but an okay place to get ice cream.
We didn't have time to visit Jerome State Historic Park, Dead Horse State Park, or the Tuzigoot National Monument. The Palatki Heritage Site is temporarily closed, as is the V-V Heritage Site. Slide Rock State park is a natural water slide; Shelly hurt herself there when she was a kid, so we didn't go back, but it looked busy when we drove by.
Sedona was in the 90's last weekend, and so I think we would wait until Fall to camp in this area again. Some Winter, we may try camping at Williams AZ and take the train up to the Grand Canyon to see it in snow.
Tom
