Browsing CategoryArizona

Williams, AZ / Grand Canyon (Round Two)

With Jeffy on board, we made a quick hop over to Williams, AZ to stage some trips into Grand Canyon (South) National Park. I guess Jeffy picked a good (impromptu) time to show up at Dyna – the Grand Canyon is pretty sick-nasty-awesome-amazing. I can’t get e-freaking-nough of the Grand Canyon. After 2 weeks of dry camping in the National Forest outside of Flagstaff, we were super pumped to empty our tanks and have access to all-you-can-water-yourself showers. We were extra pumped when we pulled into The Grand Canyon Railway RV Park and were assigned the primo spot in the park.…

Flagstaff, AZ

Flagstaff, AZ is basically one big boondocking site. Free camping areas surround the city center like flies to sh…oo-fly-pie. Paired with Flagstaff’s reputation for great beer, great food, and running trails galore, we couldn’t resist the temptation of a free camping site – even when threatened with below enjoyable temperatures and probable snow squalls. We settled on some land in the Walnut Canyon National Monument area, as we were sure the roads would be open and possibly accessible by Dyna. When we boondock, it’s a bit of a process. Rolling around the country in a 40’er has it’s perks (dance…

Winslow, AZ

So let’s get it out of the way now. Yes, the Eagles wrote a song with mention of the city of Winslow, AZ. And yes, Winslow thinks that is a very big deal. So that you can suffer momentarily as I did for a full week, here are the lyrics: “Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see. It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me”  Jake thought it was great to play that stupid song every time we got in the car. I am so…

Holbrook, AZ

On February 28th we rolled on all 12 wheels into Holbrook, AZ. Why Holbrook, AZ you may be asking yourself? What’s the scoop? Is it amazing and great there? Is there a lot of amazing stuff to do? No. It’d be more effective to just ask yourself, ‘why do Jake & Liz go anywhere these days?’ Correct! You’re right! Great job! Yes! Holbrook does have a diesel shop! Jake swears that this time it was ‘planned’ maintenance. At this point, I’m almost of the impression that Jake just really likes hanging out at repair shops. Except I know he hates…

Casa Blanca, NM

We mentioned in our previous blog we stayed at an overpriced place in Albuquerque. Several times if I remember correctly. I can’t help it. I’m cheap. And I’m not embarrassed about my cheapness. It drives Jake insane sometimes. But in this instance he agreed with my tendency towards cheapness. We decided we needed to find somewhere cheap to stay for a bit to makeup for the bling$bling we spent in Albuquerque. Of course, Dyna’s been being a pain in the a-double-s lately, so we aren’t currently able to wildcamp. Which would typically be free. Something to do with the radiator…

Tucson, AZ

We pulled into Tucson, AZ after a 10 hour day of driving. And then, we got stuck. As in, one of our rear drive wheels came off the ground, and since you need both drive wheels touching the ground to move, we weren’t moving. So that wasn’t good. Luckily, we had Bob just a few spaces down to teach us the ways of getting unstuck. These ‘ways’ involve levelers, blocks, and an audience of fellow RVers sitting in lawn chairs watching our debacle. I firmly believe that the audience which predictably forms around any ‘RV idiot moment’ is the most…

Page, AZ

We’ve been doing some stuff over the past week.  Like meeting up with my long-lost college running mate and goodfriend, JessBrown (she will always be JB- JessBrown- to me. Sorry Andy!). And moving Dyna up to Page, AZ.  And adventuring on foot, car, and kayak. And playing a fun little game called ‘plumbing’.  Let’s start with the fun game.  After an afternoon of exploration and getting conned into eating at this place with every European tourist in town (no, we don’t recommend you go here for good barbecue, but the people watching was elite status), we tucked in for the…

Rout 66, AZ

Our weekend plans were interrupted by some weather (of the foul variety), so we found ourselves ‘playing it by ear’ (from now on, I will denote use of this metaphor with the acronym ‘PBE’). We nixed a second trip to the Grand Canyon and decided to go explore some nearby towns on Rte.66.  We drove through a ghost (Ash Fork) before hitting Seligman, which is anything but a ghost. We were even greeted by a parade! Now, the parade was only ~8 vehicles (2 fire engines, an ambulance, a few cars pulling hay wagons) and 2 horses long, BUT it passed…

Grand Canyon, South Rim, AZ

2:30am alarms suck. The Grand Canyon does not suck. Hiking the Grand Canyon completely negated a 2:30am wake-up.   After doing a lot of online research (all of which said DO NOT do a ‘day hike’ into the Canyon in July), we decided to do a day hike into the Canyon in July.  We found a 13.5 miles loop that would get us pretty close to the floor of the Canyon without roasting us alive by actually attempting to hike to the Colorado River & back in one day. This involved starting from the South Rim, hiking down most of the…

Williams, AZ

Phoenix is not just the place where we met Dyna, it’s also flipping hot!  We’ve spent the majority of our lives in upstate NY- where it’s not flipping hot.  Henceforth, we were inspired to head toward temperatures in which real human beings can survive; the closest destination involving these standards is Flagstaff.   We found a place to park our Dyna not too far out of Flagstaff at Railside RV Ranch in Williams, AZ.  Dyna labored up (& down, & up again) to finally reach 7,000ft+, but she did it! Williams, AZ is awesome.  You should probably visit here someday…