Mary Lesh

This is my kind of hiking. Each sight had a 1/3 mile round trip paved surface. With the heat, I just can’t do much more. I think it has been hard on Chanel too. The ground is so hot for her and we have to stop to give her water. Some places actually have water bowls/fountains for the dogs. I am copying and pasting directly from the National Parks website. This 20 room high-rise apartment, nestled into a towering limestone cliff, tells a story of ingenuity, survival and ultimately, prosperity in an unforgiving desert landscape. It is quite impressive. For those interested in knowing more here is a link.https://www.nps.gov/moca/learn/historyculture/sinagua.htm

On the way out of Montezuma’s Castle–heading to his well we saw a sign for fry bread. We had to stop.

It was fried dough. John does this a lot when he has left over dough from pizza. It was a nice snack.

Montezuma’s Well was another 1/3 mile round trip on paved surface. There were some spiral stairs (made from the rocks) and John went down them. I stayed on top waiting to see his pictures.

After this we had time to stop at 2 quilt stores. One, Stitches, in Camp Verde and Quilters Quarters in Cottonwood.

We then went back to camp and made reservations for our next leg in Kingman, AZ. We are staying at a boondocker place there for 3 nights. Then we went to the lagoon so I could look for some birds–that avoided me at all costs. John walked Chanel around the lagoon and got pictures of ducks and ducklings and large Heron. Whatever!

Taking it easy. We just passed through to get our picture here and then headed to Sedona, AZ. We needed some hook ups and showers.

We spent one night at Mund’s RV Park. We made reservations but, we arrived late so we didn’t get the code to access the bathrooms. We used the shower in our camper–which is fine– just a little confining. Munds is huge. We were in their “oversized” campsites which had no shade. Originally we thought we might stay longer but really didn’t like it there. We found some available sights at Dead Horse Ranch and booked 3 nights. Absolute heaven here.

You can see the difference.

We just spent 3 days at Dead Horse and traveled to Sedona and Camp Verde and even just hung around camp. This place is so pretty and there is so much to do. We saw a Roadrunner but I did not have my camera. I have been shooting with my phone most of this trip as it is too hot to carry any equipment. The pictures below are all from John at Dead Horse Ranch State Park.

Sedona is absolutely beautiful. We went to the Church of the Holy Cross, we wanted to hike to Devils Bridge but we realized it was a 10 mile hike. This old lady is not up for that. Whew! I like the shorter treks. We started the Brins Mesa trail and hiked about 1 mile in and had to turn around because I was getting sick. Ugh! I just can’t seem to drink enough water. We went back to camp and I took a nap. Me, the one who doesn’t believe in napping. I slept for about an hour. We went to Tuzigoot National Monument and hiked the 1/3 mile loop (that’s my speed) and then we went to the airport mesa to get sunset pictures. We got there early. Really early. Clouds came in and we took some pictures and thought we would not get much better since the clouds were so low. On the way back to camp the sky was spectacular. We should have waited. Although, we were on the other side of those mountains so maybe they didn’t get all that color.

Church of the Holy Cross
Church of the Holy Cross
From Church of the Holy Cross
Tuzigoot National Monument
Tuzigoot National Monument
Brins Mesa
From the Airport Mesa
From the Airport Mesa
From the Airport Mesa
On the way home from the Airport Mesa

Slow internet has kept me a bit behind. More coming as I slowly try to catch up.

We made it and in record time! We are 2 days ahead of schedule. Partly because I scheduled 2 stops in relatively the same place–not intentionally. I think I just forgot to delete one when I found the second one. One thing about planning these trips, I never know just how far we will go each day. I have to guess. Traveling with a trailer takes longer and sometimes we just take a detour at the drop of a hat. Sometimes John just doesn’t want to stop yet.

We arrived at the Painted Desert at 4:56. They close the gate at 5:00–we just made it in, whew! We had to drive all the way through to the other side to our campsite. There is free camping outside the south gate. I am going to be honest. There isn’t a lot to see at this national park. While I would never say, “Don’t go.” Once you drive through you pretty much have seen it all. It’s beautiful to see. We set up camp and made dinner. It was so windy I had to stand outside with a blanket held out to block the wind. Even though it was hot all day the evenings definitely cool off–which is good because we did not have power. John did check in the museum/gift shop to make sure we were in the right spot. She confirmed and let John know she would be there at 6:00 am making coffee.

The next morning we got up bright and early and John went next door to buy coffee. Because we are members of Harvest Hosts, our coffee was free. You know John was in heaven. Free camping, free coffee!