A nice picturesque short 90 minutes out of the desert and the 34 degree (c), back to the green forests at over 7,000 feet and a comfortable 21 degrees, ah, a little relief from the hot, hot temps.
Our route took us south out of the TT Verde Valley along the 260 until we met up with the I17 towards Flagstaff. Just before Flagstaff we headed west along the I40 towards Williams where we again turned north along the 64 to the KOA Grand Canyon. Now this KOA has pluses and minuses, you think when you hear KOA you will get pristine level sites with great amenities. Well this park has some appearances of being a great RV Park but they do pack them in here. I thought we were getting a full hook up site for our 5 nights here but it seems that I booked a power and water site only, now that caused me to scratch my head. So with no full hook up availability off we went to our back in, number 23 site. I said, well okay, looks like I will have to pull out and dump my tanks at some point, shouldn’t be a huge deal. Well, let me tell you that first off this site is nowhere near level, my passenger rear tires are currently sitting as high up as possible on my Anderson blocks with my tongue Jack not sitting as level as I would like it to be. That all said to go and re-hitch back up to dump my tanks will not as simple as that, especially when I will need to revisit the balancing act all over again. We are almost in balance but I just don’t feel that comfortable as this is a first time faced with this situation. Talk about testing the limits of the equipment, yes, all in the learning curve. The good news is that we pulled just ahead of the rush, so I had plenty of room to wedge us into this spot. I’m hoping that it is a weekend crowd and that there may be an opportunity to move us in a few days. We shall see.
Now for the exciting part. I did not realize that just south of us at Williams lies a portion of the historic Route 66. Given that we have 5 nights here, we will check that out tomorrow and then visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on Monday.
The temperatures last night came down significantly giving us an a/c free sleep, low to mid 60’s (f) temp wise. Our day began with brilliant sunshine but has turned into a thunderous rain shower this afternoon. Andiamo is getting a good rinse at the time of writing. That said, we did get out and had a great opportunity to explore the Route 66 town of Williams before this all set in. The 50’s and 60’s are alive here in Williams, all the boxes checked including Elvis and a store owner decked out in her poodle skirt. The weather then was perfect for wandering around including an outdoor lunch at a former gas station, gas pumps and all. Portions were huge and yes they required the afternoon nap to all help digest and settle, lol. The sprinkling of rain began as we paid the bill or check depending on how you call it, it’s a check here. The former gas station / restaurant included a guitarist / singer that strummed out some great folk / rock music - he did an excellent version of the Rolling Stones, Wild Horses. Not sure how he fared out in the rain. It really started coming down as we got back to the truck - great timing for us.
Waking from my half hour slumber, the thunder could be heard in the distance with the rain coming down in buckets. I think we will stay in at this point. We are hoping that this will just pass here, we got some exploring to do. If it rains like this in Vancouver you pretty much could expect it to last at least a week, we call it Junuary. We shall see.
Some pics of last few days here about an hour out of the Grand Canyon. Hope you enjoy…
Yup, we are in the countryside all right…
Several great cottage type cabins here, the new communal bathhouses have heated floors.
Andiamo in her place amongst all the others. No it’s not a parking lot, lol
More cabins on the other side.
Getting all of the Anderson levellers. All four inches, still a half inch out for perfect balance.
Strawberry moon last night. It made a surprise showing.
This KOA does have a great dog exercise area. We were trying to teach Zhalbey some obstacles, lol
This was so fun to do.
This was an awesome store / museum. Yes, dogs allowed pretty much everywhere here.
Great scale model of the times.
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