Tripometer – 11912 mi
Gas Gauge – 908.875 gal
Location – Days Inn, Camp Verde, AZ
Lodging – $100
Cans of OFF – 4
Looking forward to warming ourselves even further, we headed South today into Sedona, AZ. We were told by several people that the Sedona area was beautiful with a ton of things to do. Our plan is to stay at one of a variety of campgrounds located in and around Sedona.
The trip to Sedona from Page was largely on smaller back roads rather than the interstate. The roads were horrible. We have a sway reduction device on our hitch that helps reduce the amount of movement between the truck and trailer but this road was testing Kelly’s patience as she drove. The road had repeating series’ of dips that caused the trailer rig to flex up and down at the connection point between the truck and trailer. This can be especially dangerous at speed because this movement can cause the front wheels to loose traction with the road and send the rig out of control. Needless to say, today’s trip took considerably longer than the Google estimate of 2.5 hours.
The drive to Sedona today took us through the mountains around Flagstaff. Leaving 60 degree temperatures in Page and not expecting significant deviation from the norm, both of us dressed in shorts for the day. At 2:30 in the afternoon when stopping for gas near Flagstaff we noted the temperature was a balmy 41 degrees and all of the surrounding mountain tops had a dusting of snow. Driving through the mountains was predictably slow with the trailer.
When passing through the canyon just North of Sedona we were expecting to look down on the town itself. What we found instead was a beautiful drive down a canyon forested with tall pines and bordered by tremendous red canyon walls the entire way. We were especially thrilled when instead of coming slowly into town we turned a corner in the canyon around a large outcropping of rock and were thrust into the heart of Sedona without any warning. Restaurants and shopping plazas as far as the eye can see when 100 feet ago there was nothing but natural beauty.
The first few campgrounds we were targeting for the evening were North of Sedona in the canyon. Even though the cellular coverage map that we’ve been using indicated that these campgrounds would have cell signal, they did not. We passed up all three of the campgrounds that we had researched with no luck. Our backup plan was Rancho Sedona RV Park within the city limits of Sedona. Sadly, by the time we arrived they had no space available through the weekend. Frustrated, we sat in the parking lot of the RV Park and made reservations at a Days Inn in Camp Verde for the evening, about 20 miles south of Sedona. All of the hotels in Sedona proper were tremendously expensive and most did not accept pets. At least the hotel offers in-room showers and a wi-fi connection!
Sedona is beautiful! The city is surrounded on all sides by tremendous red canyons and mesas in such variety that makes your head spin. Each mesa and rock formation has a name and all have trails leading up to and around them. We’re really looking forward to further exploring the area.
On the way to the hotel we checked out the cellular connection at a little RV park located directly off of the interstate at Cliff Castle Casino. The signal was strong with good data speeds but the trailer park sites looked awfully close together and the RV park was still 30 minutes from Sedona. We had left our business card with the folks at Rancho Sedona in the hopes that a site would open there tomorrow, allowing us to stay in the city of Sedona within walking distance of most of the things we’d like to see and do. Our plan is to check in with them tomorrow.