Arizona - the first few days (5/9-10/07)

Entering Arizona

First Day: Sense of Place is interesting - you don't expect to see much real difference when crossing a political border like a state line, but the border from California to Arizona at Blythe is different - first, there's the river. Crossing the still wide Colorado (before it empties its last irrigation in the Imperial Valley) and that swath of green lets you know you've crossed a real boundary. Then there is the vegetation - suddenly saguaros! The rocks change gradually to more Arizona style jagged desert peaks and shale "badlands," but you don't see Saguaros in California - Ocotillo, Cholla, Creosote, Prickly Pear, Yucca, but no Saguaros. Shortly after crossing the Colorado River, the first Saguaros show up on the red rocky hillsides, and you know you are in Arizona!

We drove out to Alamo Lake State Park for our first night back on the road. Very hot this time of year, but very nice out there. We enjoyed some of the old tourist signs in towns along the way - cute little motels with funny names, like "Burro Jim's," and a cafe that had a sign out front that said "Hot Beer, Lousy Food, Bad Service - Welcome!"

Prescott: The second night, we made it over some tough grades and windy roads to Prescott. We had internet access in the campground at Lynx Lake, since it wasn't too far from town, and Devin researched roads to avoid burning up the transmission on more roads like that! He discovered the Mountain [Roads] Directory, which has a webpage with the Arizona part free! It lists all of the grades, speed limits, curves, etc, for most mountain roads so you can make informed decisions about whether to drive your rig on them. The route we had been planning to take from Prescott to Sedona (continuing on 89 and 89A) was going to be even worse than yesterday, so we made a slight change in plans. Drive the Moho on the main highway and explore on the Jeep. We liked Prescott, and can see why Janet and Art loved it there and would love to move back someday. The old part of town with Courthouse Square is lovely!

On the way out through Prescott Valley the next day, we stopped at Ace Hardware to get some hose plugs for our water system - it had been leaking very little through the fill valve, and we decided to outfit most of our connections (grey water, tank flush, and fresh fill) with quick connects, so we would plug the other side of the quick connect until we attached a hose. Quick connects are great - we already have them on our water filter/fill system and it makes it so easy to just hook up and fill. Anyway, we had a $20 gift certificate for Ace from Devin's cousin Dave (from two Christmases ago) and we were excited to finally use it! When I went to check out, though, there was a problem. After getting two levels of managers involved and making a call to India, where the customer service for the gift card apparently was, they finally were able to give me credit. They were very nice through all of this, and even though the gift card was apparently "expired" (I thought that was illegal!!) they gave me store credit and we got our quick connect hose plugs and also a couple of bird feeders! I would definitely shop at Ace again - excellent customer service!

We drove that day to Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, near Sedona. It is a very nice state park along the Verde River - Arizona's only designated Wild and Scenic River (wait, what about the Grand Canyon stretch of the Colorado? Doesn't that count?) Our campsite was up away from the river but had some desert trees around it for a bit of shade. We put out our awning and put out our new bird feeders and made ourselves at home. We saw roadrunners right away, catching lizards, and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds where whirring around as well. After a quick lunch of cold chicken we had gotten in Prescott (what a good idea to have food ready when you pull in after driving!), we headed up to Jerome in the Jeep.