Arizona Wandering

 Time in Las Vegas is never dull, but after a week we needed a change of scenery, and headed south toward Arizona. Our daughter attended Prescott College back in the day, so on our way to Tucson we stopped in Prescott for a few days. 

We were greeted by storm clouds and cold temps when we arrived at Fairgrounds RV Park in Prescott Valley. The park is about eleven miles east of Prescott, but is such a great park that we couldn’t pass it up. Each site has a patio with a windbreak fence and is wide and long.

The storm clouds and the sun put on quite a show.

The weather continued to change as we moved into evening and when we got up the next morning we were shown a bit o’ snow!

Prescott College was originally housed in a donated former chapel on the grounds of a convent. This building included classrooms, a mailroom, staff offices and a meeting room. There weren’t many students!

Today the campus provides 840 students a liberal arts education on a large campus.

Prescott is the original capital city of the state of Arizona back in the 1850’s due to the vast number of gold mines and miners. As expected, a bit of gold in their pockets brought the miners to town and the town square was home to so many saloons that they were stuffed in side by side. We took a walk around the square and snapped a pic of Gurley Street, the main street in town.

After a few days in Prescott, we moved a bit south to Picacho Peak State Park. We only had one night here because we had an appointment in Tucson the next day, but the park was extremely beautiful this early spring after more than average rainfall.

We should return!

Zipping on down to Tucson, we dropped the trailer off at Bob Moses Ceramic Coating for their magic exterior treatment. Guaranteed for six years, maintenance is reduced to the occasional wash, and bugs come off with a damp microfiber cloth. Sounds good to me! There are several Bob Moses locations across the west, and we chose the Tucson location so we could spend a bit of time with some Michigan friends. Tiger, the office manager, is one of the most customer friendly people we have ever done business with and went out of his way to make our visit as stress free as possible. Tiger and three associates started work on the trailer as soon as we arrived, and were 80% done by 6 that evening. The product needs some time to cure away from water, so the trailer (and ourselves) stayed in the shop overnight.

We had allowed four days for the process, but they finished early so we slid into the local KOA for some laundry/grocery/dog wash time. We were also able to take a short drive through Saguaro National Park to check out the wildflowers.

Our friend Toni was the most colorful flower in the desert!

Leaving Tucson with a full refrigerator, clean laundry, a full fuel tank, and a sparkling trailer, we braved Phoenix traffic on I17 north toward Flagstaff. It began to rain, snow, sleet, and the wind came up to a reported 50 mph, so we ducked into Verdi Ranch RV Resort with the storm at our heels.

This RV Resort is located in Camp Verdi, AZ, and is a bit pricey for us, considering the gravel and unlevel sites, but…a hundred here and a hundred there…and pretty soon you have some real money!

Tomorrow (weather permitting) we’re outta here, heading north. 

Until next time.