AZ Archives - Our View From The Road

Day 13: From Sin City to Silence

After a great nights sleep in this amazing campground, (Willow Springs) we took advantage of the amazing shower facilities (9/10) before prepping for the road.

Our first stop was of course Hoover Dam. It was just 20 minutes from the campground and we arrived at about 10:30am. It was relatively quiet but I’d still recommend getting there earlier than we did in order to see everything you want.

We took the shorter Power Plant tour as we still had a fair drive ahead of us. The tour was very good and we got to see the inside of one of the turbine rooms at the bottom of the dam.

There are tonnes of statistics about this dam that I won’t try to bore you with as others elsewhere online can share those better than I can. I will just say that the entire site is quite an engineering marvel given that it was built in the 1930’s and has been updated consistently since, including the construction of a new roadway bridge over the canyon which avoids having all highway traffic drive across the dam. We highly recommend visiting the Hoover Dam if you’re ever in this area, we’ll be back to take the longer Dam Tour the next time.

We left Hoover Dam at about 12:45pm and headed towards Las Vegas, NV. The drive was only about 45min and we headed to the ‘strip’.

We had no intentions of staying (at one point in our planning we had thought of camping near the strip but dropped that idea). Instead we were just going to drive down ‘the strip’ and take in the sights, sounds and aromas of Sin City. Barb took pictures and I concentrated on traffic and traffic signals. It took over half an hour to drive to the North end and back onto the interstate where we headed South on I-15 towards California.

The following are a few pictures from Las Vegas captured on our drive-through. We have plans to fly back to LV in the future and take in the city and the entertainment without worrying about our van and belongings.

We stopped in Primm, NV to fill up with non-California priced fuel, or so we thought. Yours truly pulled the boneheaded move of the day by accidentally pressing the ‘Supreme’ button on the gas pump and paid $6.029/US gallon. Until today we’d been paying less than $4/US gallon. Ouch.

Crossing into California we drive along I-15 to Barstow where we exited and head South for about 20 miles to a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campground. Sawtooth Canyon has no services and so you need to be self-sufficient while staying there. This includes packing out all garbage. Camping is free but there are only 13 sites available on a first-come first-served basis. We were lucky and got a fairly level site next to a large rock outcropping in the middle of the campground. So far it is VERY QUIET and relaxing. We might even stay here for a couple of nights.

Looking forward to watching the stars tonight.

Day 12: Take it easy

Up early and showered! These time zone changes are making getting up early easier and easier. The showers at our campground were rating 3/10. Lots of hot water and a private lockable shower room but that’s it. Dirty, dilapidated, hard to set the perfect temp water. It got us clean, best possible outcome given the conditions.

The campground was very quiet and the sites are spaced nicely apart. A great place to stop for a night if you’re near or passing by Winslow, AZ.

Speaking of Winslow, you might have guessed from yesterday’s blog that today we are starting our day by visiting Winslow to stand on a corner and admire a certain flatbed Ford. All of course references to the Eagles song “Take it Easy” in which Winslow is referenced and now visited by tens of thousands of each year from around the world.

We started our visit to Winslow by parking the van almost immediately behind ‘the’ flatbed Ford. It was early and the town was still quiet. We went to enjoy breakfast at “The Flatbed Cafe”. Barb ordered Enchiladas & Eggs while I orders Eggs Benedict. This was a treat and it was delicious.

Afterwards we went to take some pictures around the towns main attraction, the flatbed Ford. The town has made a very nice space for visitors such as us to take pictures including piping Eagles music throughout the area. As it was early we had the place almost to ourselves but we were assured that within an hour our so it would be bustling with people all trying to get the perfect picture. The only other people there were a couple originally from Markham, ON (small world) that now live in Los Angeles, CA.

Leaving town I realized that Winslow is a rarity for US-66, it’s prospering. Could this really be because it was referenced in a song some 52 years ago? Do/did the Eagles have that much of an effect? One wonders.

We head a little further West and take a detour to visit the Meteor Crater. This crater was formed almost 50,000 years ago when a huge meteor crashed into the Arizona landscape. It’s estimated the explosion equaled 20,000 tons of TNT.

Today the crater is 550 ft deep and almost a mile across. It’s privately owned by the family that owns bar T bar ranch, the Barringer’s. There is a $27USD entrance fee that includes access to the observation walkways, a museum, theatre & guided tours. We did not take the guided tour or watch the movie in the theatre but did walk about on our own and visited the museum. This is a great place to visit, but in my opinion should not cost what it did. Maybe I’m just cheap. We both really enjoyed the visit.

Returning to I-40 we headed towards Flagstaff and then onto Kingsman, AZ. Here we stopped for groceries at Bashas’ supermarket before heading out and turning away North from I-40 towards Lake Mead. We stopped for the night in the Lake Mead Recreational Area and are staying at the Willow Creek Campground & RV Park. Our site (D3) has a fabulous view of the Colorado River canyon as the river flows South away from Hoover Dam.

All for today, good night one and all.

P.S. Our mouse guest checked out last evening.

Day 11: When is wood not wood?

We awake to look out across a lava field left by a volcano some 10,000 years ago. It seems alien in what can already be considered by many an alien landscape.

Oh, and we discovered that we have a mouse in the van as evidenced by buns having been nibbled as well as a banana. Traps were procured.

Argh, we have a mouse! Not happy campers.

New Mexico is harsh. It gets hot, very hot in the Summer but we awoke to 1C this morning. The sky is almost always bright blue, clouds just don’t seem to form here and yet when it does rain torrential floods can wash away bridges and towns. It’s dry today, no floods to worry about. As we drive we wonder what life is like day-to-day in this environment, one that doesn’t seem to have seasons where trees leaf and then fall, where every road seems to lead to the horizon and the only evidence that anyone knows about it is the large plume of dust they leave as they traverse the landscape. Harsh.

Our first stop today was the Continental Divide, the place in the Rockies where water either flows towards the Atlantic or the Pacific. There’s a small plaque that we stopped at to commemorate our passing from East to West.

Soon we crossed into Arizona, another time zone change. This time from Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) to Mountain Standard Time (MST). Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time. So, we are now at the same time as those on the West coast but not yet in the same time zone.

A little ways into Arizona we make a stop at the Petrified Forest National Park. We entered at the North gate and followed the 28 mile road through the park to the South Gate. In the North you get to explore the Painted Desert from overlooks that expose a wonderful array of colors in the hillsides.

As you travel South the landscape becomes more barren and moon-like before depositing you into the petrified forest. As you look about you see what appears to be rocks strewn about the landscape, but when you get close you realize that they are all petrified wood from trees that died 10’s of millions of years ago. We stopped in a few places and walked amongst these ‘logs’ and were amazed by the variety of colors of crystals that had replaced the original organic wood fibers. Some look like a lumberjack had recently felled the trees and cut the logs into short lengths but then left the logs instead of taking them away. To look at, it’s wood. To touch, it is rock.

After leaving the park we continue westward and stop for the night at Homolovi State Park near Winslow, AZ. A quiet spot in the desert to spend the end of the day amongst the sagebrush & tumbleweeds.

Tomorrow a certain flatbed Ford will be sought out and then onto western Arizona and into Nevada.

Day 35: Angels Peak

Driving day today as we awake from another quiet night of slumber. The wind has picked up a bit and is from the West so that should help with our travels today.

A normal pre-travel morning routine sees us enjoy a small breakfast and then it’s time to disconnect from the campground services and prepare to depart. All is good to go.

Our first stop will be very familiar to anyone who has watched the movie “Forrest Gump” for we stop and take some pictures at the place where Forrest ends his running and decides to go home.

From here we drove just a short distance to Mexican Hat to view Mexican Hat Rock. Let me save you the time, it’s a rock that happens to look like a sombrero balancing on a much smaller rock. The picture says it all.

Next stop, the Four Corners. This is the place where Arizona, Utah, Colorado & New Mexico all meet. It is marked with a plaza where you can walk between the four states or stand in two states or if you include your hands, like Barb, you can be in all four states at the same time (almost). You see, Arizona does not use daylight savings time & so you can also be a time traveler and be in multiple states at different times! The plaza is on Navaho land and as such an $8/person tribal fee is required to access the plaza which also contains many Navaho vendors selling all kinds of authentic goods. Enjoy the pictures.

Leaving the Four Corners we drove South and reconnected with the US-64E towards Farmington, NM and then onto Bloomfield, NM where we turn SE towards our stop for the night, Angels Peak, NM. This is a BLM night and so we will have to hope that we can find a nice spot. Oh, were we lucky. We found a quiet corner of one of the picnic areas that overlooks the Angels Peak Badlands & for the first time on this trip we snagged a gazebo under which to eat our meals! Bonus.

The evening is super quiet as the sun sets. There are almost no clouds in the sky & there shouldn’t be any light infiltration to detract from the starry skies.

Day 34: Monument Valley

7:00am and an alarm wakes us. The time has gone ahead an hour now that we’re (just) in Utah and we are being picked up at 9:00am for our guided tour of the Monument Valley and backcountry. We enjoy a light breakfast and get ready to be out and about for a few hours.

Our guide arrives a little early so we climb into the rig and he takes us to the View hotel that sits at the entrance to the valley. Accessing the valley requires us to pay an $8/person tribal fee as the land is owned by the Navaho (Dineh) tribe. We pick up a few more passengers (visiting from France and Spain) and we head down into the valley.

The drive can be made using your own vehicle and although RVs are not allowed our campervan would have been permitted but as we will discover, the road is very rough and uneven. We are both very glad to have chosen to take a tour and we’re only just at the beginning.

The steep gravel and sand road flattens out at the bottom of the valley and you begin to realize the size of the sandstone mesas that are scattered about the valley. Some are over 1000’ in height.

The valley is most famous for being the filming location of early Hollywood westerns many of which were produced by John Ford such as Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956) both of which starred John Wayne. There is now a location within the valley named John Ford point.

All of the mesas in the valley have names, some are easy to understand their source such as ‘The Elephant’ or ‘Three Sisters’. Others require a bit of imagination to see what is evidently seen by others.

The tour takes us in the backcountry beyond the self-drive route to a tribal village where, in a traditional shelter called a ‘Hogan’ we are shown how rugs are woven from sheep’s wool that is sheared, washed, spun and colored by hand before being woven into intricately patterned rugs.

Lastly while in the backcountry we visit a few places to see huge holes or arches through the mesas created by millions of years of erosion. At our last stop, our guide plays his traditional wooden flute while we gaze at the sky through one of these massive holes. Quite magical.

Returning to the entrance to the valley, we notice that there are many more folks now self driving the roads and we see a few vans bumping along and we wonder if they have anything left in their cupboards. The tour was 3hrs long and cost us each $70USD, but we both feel that we got so much from it. We learned much from our guide about the history of the Dineh people and how living in a modern world has affected their way of life. If you visit, we recommend taking a tour.

The remainder of the day we spent at our campsite relaxing and planning the remaining days of our trip. Still more to come so keep checking back.

P.S. Yes, there is now red sand everywhere in the van.