Fun in the Sun Road Trip -Days 36-38, Final Chapter

Leaving Zion National Park, we had planned to stop for 3 nights en route back home. The first night was a short trip of 3 hours to Yuba State Park (UT). Typically we like to relax in the after noon, walk around and explore the park, have some wine, and play some games around a campfire (Dominoes or Yahtzee). But when we arrived a little after noon, it was fiercely cold and windy, and we could not imagine hanging out for the rest of the day in the trailer. So we kept going and stopped a couple hours later in Brigham City, north of Ogden. We stayed at a nice little RV park called Golden Spike and used our “Passport America” 50% discount. Note, if you don’t have a “Passport America” membership, I highly suggest you get one if you travel/camp a lot. For the whole trip, we stayed 7 nights in campgrounds that took Passport America, and we saved about $130 in fees. Since our two-year membership cost $80, that’s a good deal. 

As we were heading north through Salt Lake City, we had also planned on taking the “northerly” route through Missoula and I-90 over to Spokane, but looking at the weather forecast, Montana was to get snowstorms both days back home. So, we did plan -B and took the I-84 route (Oregon Trail) via Pendleton. The first day leaving Brigham city we woke to snow falling, and along the way found more snow and fought really heavy headwinds. I swear my mileage was 1/2 what it normally is. We stopped the second night at a great state park in Huntington, OR called Farewell Bend. It is right on the snake river at the beginning if Hells Canyon. 

The drive home was sunny and uneventful, albeit a long 7-hour drive. All was well when we arrived home. The cat was very happy to see us.

Trip Summary:

Trip length:	4164 miles
Campgrounds stayed at:	19
Favorite Campgrounds (to visit again for sure)	Anza Borrego SP (CA) Lost Dutchman (AR) Pismo Beach SP (CA)
Worst Campgrounds	Patrick’s Point SP (CA)
Places to see again	Arizona Sonora Desert Museum
Places we won’t go back to	Quartzsite
New on our list for next time	Gilbert Ray Campground (AZ) Explore New Mexico La Palomas, MX Grand Canyon

We had a fantastic trip that was worry and breakdown-free, with nice weather (mid 70’s), and we accomplished our goal of leaving the tail end of winter snow to come home to sunny weather and almost no snow. Also, 1-1/2 months is the right amount of time too. Next time we want to explore a bit of New Mexico as well as hit our favorite stops from this trip. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun in the Sun Road Trip, Days 31-35, North through Zion

Finally time to head north, we set off from the Tombstone Territories on a route that will take us through Las Vegas and drop us at Zion National Park. The first stop north is a smallish BLM campground north of the cowboy town of Wickenburg to Burro Creek campground. One unexpected benefit of this route was that the road is called the Joshua Tree Forest highway, so in addition to the many variety of cactus we’ve seen on this trip, we got to go through this beautiful Joshua Tree forest. Not what we normally expect of a forest by Washington standards, but a forest of trees nonetheless. Burro Creek was a nice campground down inside a canyon, with an actual creek running at the bottom. Dry campsites with fairly nice restrooms (no showers). I rate it an ‘8”. We regularly cross bridges over creek and riverbeds in Arizona, only to find them all dry this time of year, so finding real water was a treat. 

The second day, we camped shy of Vegas in the Lake Mead NRA “Boulder” campground. Lake Mead is of course created by Hoover Dam and is the largest man made reservoir in the western hemisphere. Boulder campground was also a dry campground (no power, water or sewer hookups) and like most national campgrounds also had no showers (luckily we have one in the trailer). The sites were large enough, but we noticed a lot of traffic in the area and there was construction going on in the campground, so it was noisy. I suspect this place would be crazy in the summer with the boaters.  

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned, we had to stop in Vegas to drop by the company that makes the cultured stone forms we bought. They sent us some replacement forms to replace some that were defective, but the replacement ones didn’t have rock sizes we liked. So, to save shipping we dropped them off, and they are going to mail us new ones.

We zipped through Vegas as soon as we could en route to Zion National Park. We skirted by Zion many years ago, when we took a camping trip with the boys. We saw the surrounding parks (Bryce, etc) on that trip, but not Zion. It is a really gorgeous, majestic park that I high recommend you see if you haven’t already. We spent three nights in Zion and took a driving trip east through the 1-mile tunnel built in 1930, took a bike ride (first family ride we took on this trip), walked a few nature trails, and drove up canyon to the lodge. We also saw a small herd of big horn sheep. There pictures surely don’t do the beauty of the park justice, but here goes anyway …

 

We stayed at Watchman campground which is very near the south entrance of the park.  It is a great campground nestled in Zion canyon, with electricity at the sites, but no water. Again, no showers, but the bathrooms are superb! They also have a large “tents only” section which is nice and allow no generators. The “South” campground nearby is also very nice and many site sit next to a stream, but dry camping. The nearby town of Springdale has groceries, gas, and of course … tee shirts and other gifts.

Day two we took a trip up canyon and saw several groups of rock climbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the road is the “river walk” path, which is a paved 1.5 mi trail that leads into a narrow canyon formed by the river. Where the trail stopped, some keep going by hiking in the stream. I read that the canyon walls get as close at 10 feet across.

Further on, we stopped at the trail of the Monarchs.

Lastly, we took a 1-mile trail to “the lower emerald pool” and falls. People seemed surprised that we haul Kyle up and down those trails in his wheelchair. We make Kyle walk the steep ones. 

Fun in the Sun Road Trip – Days 27-30, Tombstone Territories and the HUGE breakdown averted

Let me backtrack to Tucson and Catalina State Park to talk a bit about the major huge colossal breakdown that almost happened. While driving around, Deb noticed a grinding noise coming out of the right front wheel area. Naturally, we started planning for the worst and started to look into Toyota Dealerships and thinking we’d need to stay a few more days, rent a car and wait for the dealership to make the necessary repairs..thinking wheel bearing. But being the mechanical talent I am (I hate working on cars), at camp I jacked up the front wheel to see if that wheel was really to just fall off. I spun it to find that exact same grinding noise,,, then with a little investigation, found that the dust shield was rubbing on the break drum… a 2 second repair and off we go!

Next stop was the Tombstone Territories, about an hour east of Tucson. What is amazing about this place is while it has the same basic desert feel and look, although hillier, the elevation is over 4000 ft. Temps in Phoenix we supposed to get into the 90’s and near 90 in Tucson that week, but it is a lot was in the mid 70’s in the tombstone areas I assume because of the elevation.

We camped at Tombstone Territories RV Park, near Huachuca City, centrally located to visit Kartchner Caverns, Bisbee, and Tombstone. It is a nice RV  park in the middle of nowhere. full hookups, nicely kept grounds and all of the amenities (i.e., we can finally do some laundry). Although a lot of people come and stay here all winter, and it is a nice place as far as private parks go, we still prefer state and national park campgrounds. I rate it a 9. They have Wifi, but you have to go to their library to access it. 

The first day, we visited Bisbee, AZ. Bisbee is a old mining town with a lot of original buildings. At one time it was the largest city between St. Louis and and San Francisco and has one of the largest mineral deposits in the world. We had lunch at the Copper Queen hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took a tour of the old Copper Queen mine, which is a small rail car that takes you down into the mine to see how things were once done. Deb and Kyle stayed back because you had to wear a hardhat and rain slicker and Kyle

 

wouldn’t abide by that. He’s not tour friendly. Next time Deb will do the tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also visited the famous Shady Grove RV  park, not really an RV park to “pull into”, but a place with refurbished classic trailers that you can stay at. We wanted to eat lunch at Dot’s Diner next door, but they were closed.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We wanted to visit the Kartchner Caverns, and we discovered that reservations are essential this time of year. Needless to say, they had no openings during our stay…so maybe next time. We played golf instead at a great municipal course in Sierra Vista.

Day three was a trip to Tombstone. This town is a National Landmark and of course, famous for ‘the gunfight at the OK Corral” (although it is really known for being a very successful silver mining city and at one time had a population of tens of thousands). We walked the wooden sidewalks, visited the tombstone Courthouse Museum/state park, and mostly window shopped the many many many tee shirt and souvenir shops along the way. Deb and I bought a couple of RED Shirt tee shirts with Tombstone logos. We also took an historic trolley tour and learned more about the history of many of the buildings and people .. including the fact that the gunfight wasn’t at the OK corral, but at an intersection of two streets a hundred yards away from the corral. Also, Wyatt Earp was only a deputy Marshall for a brief period and it was his brother Virgil who was the real lawman. Virgil’s brothers Wyatt and Morgan and doc Holliday were only temporary deputy sheriffs.  Anyway, it is a nice town to visit despite the cowboys trying to get you into their “authentic” gunfights” on every other street corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way out of town we stopped at the Boot Hill Cemetery where the Clantons and McLaury’s are buried.

 

We also stopped at the Fairbank ghost town site.