March 23, 2011: Sedona with a Day Trip to Jerome and Prescott, Arizona

We decided we definitely wanted to stay another day here in Sedona so made the trek to the RV camp office as soon as they opened and were lucky to get another nigh. This really is one of the nicer spots we have ever stayed in and will definitely stay here again. The owners take impeccable care of this campground. The shower facilities are spotless, it is totally peaceful just about any hour of the day, and the location is spectacular. Laurie, at least, would rate this among the top three of any campgrounds we have stayed in across the U.S. since getting the camper.

Today we drove south on Highway 89A to Prescott, but most importantly through the mining town of Jerome, where our good friends, John and Mary Lou McKenney lived for five years back in the '90s.

To get to Jerome from Sedona, you follow Oak Creek Canyon south, traveling first through the surprisingly -- and somewhat annoyingly -- congested Sedona.... I guess we have just as little right to be here as any other tourist, but this poor little town is at capacity, even in late March, before peak season. We made a very necessary stop at the local Safeway, then chose the right direction on Highway 89 as people seemed to be more interested in going north today.

Jerome is only about 30 miles from Sedona but about an hour away down Highway 89A. You pass through a couple of small towns along the way, and remarkably about six seemingly unnecessary roundabouts. If you have not traveled through Europe or seen these roundabouts, they are a method of slowing traffic and directing you through several optional right turns. Often this is done at one would normally be a four-way stop. Everyone rolls through the intersection without stopping, although you have to yield to others coming into the circle and heading your way, sometimes resulting in your stopping. These seem to make great sense in the middle of Paris, but in the middle of Cottonwood, Arizona, it is kind of strange. Surely some traffic engineer somewhere understands the rationale, but it seemed more hazardous than expedient to us in this situation.

At any rate, eventually you start winding your way up Cleopatra Hill to Jerome, a great hillside mining town at 5,200 feet that was founded in 1876. Once known as the "wickedest town in the west" because of its reputation for gambling and prostitution, Jerome was a copper mining camp, growing from a settlement of tents to a thriving mining community. The town's population reached a peak of 15,000 in the 1920s. Although its prosperity as a mining town ended in the 20s, it had a short rejuvenation in the 80s, but has essentially become an artists community with a population of about 450, with a number of popular restaurants and hotels. We found the main draw to be the photogenic quality of this town, perched so seemingly precariously on this hillside with a view across the valley to the red rocks of Sedona. The road winds through the town via four or five hairpin turns, and everything seems to be just hanging there.

The mine itself is no longer operational and sadly, because of Arizona state budget cuts, the park is only open Thursdays through Monday now (we arrived on a Wednesday). Fortunately the townspeople have sort of adopted the old mine site and there were a number of people there with some knowledge of the place. The home where our friends the McKenneys used to live was bought some years back by a woman who totally restored the house, including small details like the butler's call bell that is a foot pedal under the dining room table. This was reportedly the honeymoon cabin built by the mine owner, James Douglas, for his son and his new bride, who he hoped would take over the mine. Unfortunately, after only a few months in the place, the daughter-in-law declared she would not live here and they vacated the premises. Today, due to the lack of smoke and haze and crap generated from the smelt operations of the mine that surely she was inundated with then, the view from this house is unbelievable.
It stretches 30 miles to the north and the red hills of Sedona, at least the same distance to the east and those desert plains, and up the hill to the south to the picturesque town of Jerome. Probably a million dollar view in any state today. But that was then and this is now....

We followed Highway 89 out of Jerome, up and up to about 7,000 feet, then back down to Prescott Valley, then into the town of Prescott. We took a loop from 169 back to 17N then 179 back through Cottonwood to 89A going north, basically one giant loop. We wanted to see The Enchantment, a resort that our friend George Renwick had highly recommended for lunch. Unfortunately, they had a strict no-pets policy so we just drove through the property to take a look at the accommodations and views. It is an absolutely unbelievable place and next time we will make arrangements to have a meal there. They have three restaurants, all of which get excellent reviews. This is their website: http://www.enchantmentresort.com/.


We got back early enough and with a fresh load of groceries to marinate chicken and get the BBQ out. We had a delicious meal of lemon rosemary chicken, rice, skinny asparagus, and leftover biscuits from last night. Another successful camper meal:-)

March 22, 2011: Scottsdale to Sedona, Arizona via Carefree (140 miles)

Recovered from our rained-out game after a good night's sleep, this morning we got packed up, loaded the camper back onto the truck, and headed out for the next phase of our trip.

Today we are scheduled to have lunch with a very dear friend who has been a mentor to me (Laurie) for all of the 20+ years I was active in the business of intercultural communication. George Renwick is a China expert, who has been a highly respected member of the field for at least 40 years. He has traveled to China on assignments from one to four years every year since 1982(!) and spends most of his time these days doing high-level executive briefings for US and European corporations involved in China. Art had never met him, so since we were going to be passing right through his home base on our way to Sedona, I contacted him a few weeks ago to see if he would be in town. Miraculously, he said he would be.

George suggested we meet at El Pedregal, a beautiful collection of shops, galleries and restaurants located right at the foot of a huge pile of boulders on the edge of the town of Carefree. We had a wonderful lunch there out on the patio (where Pepé was welcome), surrounded by artwork, a fountain, and a myriad of birds. Homemade bread made for the most incredible sandwiches, and after camping and eating at minimal restaurants over the last week, the fresh salad was delicious. We caught up with George, exchanged many great stories, and suddenly three hours had passed.... We bid our farewells, promised to keep in touch, and headed up the road to Sedona.

The drive to Sedona from Carefree is spectacular and a climb from about 2,400 feet to 4,400 feet. In addition to the change in soil color, the vegetation changes dramatically as you climb these 2,000 feet. We went from desert, to a high plains grassy landscape, then into conifers mixed with cactus before we began to see the red rocks that signify Sedona.

As George explained to us at lunch, the Saguaro cactus is a highly adapted, incredibly innovative creature. They thrive only within a very limited range of elevation (600-3,600 feet) and only in places that have a particular range of temperatures and rainfall. This part of Arizona is one of those lucky places. Also, you can guesstimate how old a Saguaro is by its height and the number of "arms" that it has. Saguaros are very slow growing and typically grow only a foot each ten years of its life. They won't grow an arm (or a branch) until they reach about 70 years of age. We also learned about how they collect water and survive in this climate, the laws restricting the destruction of Saguaros or transplanting of them without a permit in this State, and the root system they have that makes it generally easy to move them, despite their formidable thorns. We had no idea.... But it gave us a huge appreciation for this valiant plant, as well as the Ocatillo and Barrel cacti, and a few of the bird species that inhabit this difficult landscape. I think George's appreciation for the desert has infected me to some extent and I am determined to learn more and see more of this territory that my mom has so long appreciated, originating probably from her days when she lived in Moab, Utah during grad school. But I'll have to ask her about that.

Once you turn off of I-17 onto Highway 179, things become magical here. Suddenly, we were surrounded by these towering red rocks, striated with white and pink layers as your eyes work their way down to where the vegetation of lush green begins. We have been to Monument Valley, which is magnificent as well. What distinguished these rocks from those was the lushness of the landscape surrounding the hills. It wasn't sand up to the rocks, but green and then red. We hit it at sundown, so I don't think our pictures are as great as they could have been, but hopefully we'll do a better job capturing the idea on our way on to Flagstaff. At the same time, the low sunlight hitting these rocks on the east side of the valley was spectacular.

We found our campground in Sedona just after 6:00 p.m. En route must have been 30 very nice galleries leading up to the bridge that separates us from the town of Sedona, across Oak Creek. Rancho Sedona is a relatively small campground right on the banks of Oak Creek. We were fortunate to get a site on the water so we can hear the creek flowing. The creek is lined with what we think are sycamore trees which are white and incredibly dramatic against the red rock scenery in the background. They are also home to at least a dozen blue herons, that we see flying over us all day and evening. If you've never seen a blue heron in flight, you don't know what you're missing. They are huge and incredibly graceful. Until they try to land on a branch in a sycamore tree. It's hilarious watching them go from ballerina to klutz, trying to get their footing on a tiny little branch.

Anyway, this campground is great and we are going to extend for another day if we can. They were full when we pulled in after-hours tonight and claimed our fortunately reserved site. And the most amazing thing happened when it got dark: across the creek, there was suddenly a two-level city over there glowing through the sycamore trees. We hadn't crossed the bridge into Sedona tonight because we got here so late, and the town is essentially invisible during the day. But at night, the lights came on and we could see all this activity over there. It was pretty neat.

We defrosted the pork chops we brought from home (miraculously still frozen solid after three days of testing the propane function on our camper refrigerator while in the motel in Scottsdale!) and made another amazing meal in our camper. Tonight I even baked biscuits in our oven, which I only tried once on our USA road trip two summers ago. They were absolutely perfect!

Tomorrow we will try to extend our stay here and explore the area a bit before moving on.

Night for now!

March 21: Scottsdale Arizona -- Spring Training Game Day

This morning we woke up to rain. Everyone in Phoenix was standing outside, looking up to the sky like turkeys in a barnyard asking, "What is that?!" -- we were afraid they were all going to drown. We explained it was rain and tried to find someone who could tell us what would happen if the ballgame was called. No one seemed to know as it has never rained before in Phoenix.

Deciding to will it into good weather, we got ready, packed up the dog, and made the 25-minute drive to his carefully selected dog sitter for the day. Karen, who owns a little business called Always Unleashed, lives at the far east side of town and on the last road before the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community, a huge Indian reservation that runs just south of her house. The houses in her area are all very nice, big, with creative landscaping and architecture. We made our way through the double gates to Karen's front door, rang the doorbell, and were greeted by at least a dozen barking on the inside. The house is outrageous, with high-end southwestern decor, a pool in the backyard (which the dogs are welcome to swim in), a huge lawn that runs up to the desert, and a special ground-level trampoline for the dogs to play on. The big dogs have the run of part of the house; the small dogs get the other half. Pepé immediately ran off to do the perimeter search forgetting about us entirely. We got him signed in, said a quick goodbye, and left for our ballgame.


Next stop was a Starbucks, where we uploaded most of our blog postings, had the first good cup of coffee we have had in two days, and split their breakfast sandwich. Pepé wasn't there to share it with us as he usually does, so we both ate a little more than usual. We then made the short drive over to the ballpark, found parking in a church parking lot for $5 (which we considered to be a good sign for the weather perking up), then walked the three blocks over to the ballpark. All in all, the weather actually looked pretty good. It was supposed to be raining by now, and people around us seemed fairly optimistic, so we settled in, rustled up some Gordon Bierch beer and food, and marveled at how incredibly good our seats were. Although we were right along the autograph side of the field, the Giants didn't really check in with the fans today. And they didn't even come out until the last minute (with the exception of Pablo Sandoval and Cody Ross, who warmed up on the field), so I didn't get the two baseballs I brought along signed. Probably just as well as I forgot the Sharpie I had brought all the way from California for the occasion in the hotel room....

All of our favorite players were on the field today: Lincecum was pitching, Ross, Huff, Posey, Sanchez, Sandoval.... It was great, even though they weren't doing too great. It was kind of sloppy wet out there.... We watched two-and-a-half innings and the Giants were down 4-0 when they stopped the game, covered up the field, and called a rain delay.

And it was raining pretty darn hard. We were both soaking wet, the french fries were not even edible, and a cold wind blew in as it really started to come down. We debated whether or not to wait it out, but since it was supposed to rain until 5:00 at least, we decided to call it a day and go find a warm place to thaw out. (Remember, this is Phoenix....)

We ended up having a glass of wine at the Marriott Resort in Paradise Valley, the perfect spot to end this afternoon of anticipation, except that they charge you $12 to get online, which is not cool. But we have warmed up and are going to go fetch our dog who hopefully had a more successful experience than we did today. Can you believe we drove 800 miles for a ballgame that got rained out?? We're thinking sushi for dinner. We figure we deserve it, but are wondering what our odds are with sushi in the desert on the one day it rains....

March 20: Scottsdale, Arizona

This is our first full day in Scottsdale. Our plan is to scope out the area including the ballpark, parking, etc. so as not to have any surprises tomorrow. We were going to do a scenic drive, but we're not as energetic as I was thinking we would be so we will stick close to home, find a place to have lunch and do a little shopping in Old Town.

This hotel is a bit like a converted Best Western or something but they have recently redone the whole place into a boutique hotel with hip decorating, very comfy beds, a great pool and poolside bar, and a fantastic restaurant that we tried out last night. They unfortunately did not bother to thicken the walls at all and you can hear absolutely every word that the next door neighbors are saying. But other than that, it is a great spot and very conveniently located. We are only about a mile from the ballpark and Old Town Scottsdale, which is a cute little shopping town loaded with turquoise jewelry shops, western wear, art galleries, and every southwestern touristy kind of place you can think of. Unfortunately, not dog friendly as far as restaurants go.


After scoping out the ballpark parking, we have decided we should probably offload the camper today. A lot of the parking is in garage lots and we can't make it in there with the camper on. We then drove the couple of blocks past the stadium and parked at Old Town Scottsdale where I read there was a dog-friendly tavern. The Old Town Tavern turned out to be a great spot with indoor and outdoor seating. They even serve Rombauer Chardonnay by the glass! You don't see that everywhere! So we sat outside, listened to the very good live music, people watched and read the Sunday NY Times. Unfortunately no food, so we finally moved on because we were both starving.

Ironically, the only place we could find where we could eat with Pepé was a Buca de Bepo Italian chain restaurant. We gather the health code here dictates no dogs even on outdoor patios, period. But he was able to sit outside the patio on the sidewalk and that was better than getting relegated to the truck.

After wandering around Old Town for a while, we came back to the hotel, took the camper off the truck, then vegged for a couple of hours.
Pepé got a little ball-chasing time in the park, and we discovered our dinner destination: a restaurant right on the other side of the park advertising a dog-friendly patio. That is where we are headed now. So we'll check in tomorrow after the ballgame.


...Assuming we don't get rained out.... Believe it or not, rain is forecasted in Phoenix tomorrow along with high winds. Our friend, Brad, says it NEVER rains in Phoenix, so we are banking on his predictions. But we're not sure what happens if it does indeed rain. Does the game go on? Do we get our money back? Does it get rescheduled? We talked to a variety of regular Spring Training Game Goers today, but no one had ever actually been rained out so no one actually knew. I guess we'll find out one way or the other!

Go Giants!

March 19: Blythe, California to Scottsdale, Arizona (160 miles)

We woke this morning to the most beautiful singing of birds in the tree right behind our camper. These birds look a little like starlings, but they are jet black, real thin but big, with long tail feathers. We'll have to find out what they are because we've seen them everywhere starting around where we picked up I-5 in California.

The campground staff at this KOA in Blythe cooks a free pancake breakfast every morning so we took part in that, then got showers in the very clean facilities, packed up the camper and took off about noon.

The drive to Scottsdale took all of about two and a half hours. I was thinking it was a little further when we made our campground reservations, but after two five-hour days in the car, it was nice to leave at noon and still get in early enough to explore a little bit.

The hotel we are in is on El Dorado Park, a skinny little park that runs about two miles north and south of where we are at the 3 Palms Oasis Resort, with bike/pedestrian paths, multiple lakes, and a frisbee golf course. You can't believe how many teams of frisbee players were out there this evening. Looks like a good spot to be with a dog that likes his walks.... Tomorrow we will check that out a little more thoroughly, as well as scope out the ballpark, parking, etc.

Once we got checked in and had carted all of our necessities in from the camper, we went and sat outside by the pool.
Even overcast, it was wonderful out there and just what we needed after a couple of long days on the road. We got our books out, did a little catch up on this blog, and ordered a couple drinks from the bar. Pepé seems to like hanging here too so this is the plan for the rest of the afternoon. The place is loaded with baseball fans and a few March Madness nuts too. Everyone has their team's sports jerseys or hats on, and not a single soul is speaking anything but sports. Quite an amazing microcosm.... We wonder if all of Scottsdale is like this or if we just happened to hit The Spring Training Hotel....

After having a fantastic dinner at Avalon, the restaurant here at the hotel, we are about to turn in for the night.
Art had a rib eye steak (cooked perfectly medium rare) with scalloped potatoes somehow infused with apples. It was outrageous. I had duck (also cooked perfectly medium rare) with a mushroom risotto that was to die for.... We might go back tomorrow night, but the menu was a bit limited and the price tag was $$$. Still, we highly recommend it to anyone passing through here.

March 18: Gorman to Blythe, California (290 miles)

We packed up and left Gorman this morning on our way to Blythe, where we have a reservation at a KOA camp tonight. We have decided to once again avoid the Los Angeles area so took a detour that routed us north of all of that, behind the San Bernadino mountain range. We took this route last year about the same time when we went down to the Anza Borega Desert to see the wildflowers just east of San Diego. It probably added 60-90 minutes to our trip, but it was a great drive and we encountered practically zero traffic on a Friday afternoon.


We had to head back north for a bit to get to the best gas price this morning, then took H138 east past Lake Elizabeth and on through Palmdale. Rather than going totally around the San Bernadino Mountains as we did last time we came through here, we headed south and caught 215, routing us just north of San Bernadino then down to I-10, which takes us all the way to Phoenix. We didn't encounter any serious traffic and made it to our KOA campground by 6:30.

This is a very nice campground and it reminded us again why we chose KOAs on our cross-country trip two summers ago. KOAs are usually very nice. They are inspected by a KOA commission and we in fact met one of these inspectors as we checked out of this campground. The dog run area was beyond comparison.
Pepé was thrilled to have camp-free peninsula to run on, and he loved the smells and obstacles in the K9 Kamp, which is an enclosed area they have at some KOAs for dogs to run free. But this place also had a huge lawn that went on forever. It could have been a different situation in high season, but there were no other dogs around so we let him off his leash and he ran his little heart out.


We threw together a little chicken parmesan dish for dinner and watched the huge moon rise over the river. Tomorrow we have a short drive so will leave a little later than usual, if that's even possible....

March 17, 2011: La Selva Beach to Gorman, California (263 miles)

As is our normal way of beginning a road trip, we left an hour later than we had planned. We did a pretty good job getting the camper loaded up in the days preceding the trip, but this Daylight Savings Time thing always throws Laurie for a loop. Half a week was not an adequate amount of time to get readjusted to the one-hour difference....

We decided to travel down Highway 101 instead of Interstate 5 for the majority of the trip today. We love the Salinas Valley, especially at this time of year when everything is so green and beautiful. Mustard dots the hills and the beauty of the alluvial plains west of all of the agricultural fields is even more rich when it is deep green. We cut across to I-5 at Paso Robles, and once again enjoyed that winding road through the hills east of this wine country. It is also green this time of year and starting to show early wildflowers that will be spectacular in three to four weeks' time.

No major events today other than filling up our gas tank ($88.99 @ $3.899/gallon) and trying to find our RV campground this evening. When we finally found it (two wrong exits and a phone call later), we were deeply apprehensive. The Pyramid Lake RV Resort sounded very nice and actually got some pretty good reviews online. But when we finally found it, we weren't so sure.... It is definitely not on Pyramid Lake. That is a state recreation area, across the other side of the freeway and nestled down in a hole away from I-5. This place is right on I-5. The office is sort of scary looking, all blinds drawn, minimal signage, and nothing but painted letters on the front door saying "Clubhouse -- Front Desk". Yikes. Art bravely entered and was in there a very long time. Pep and I started Googling nearby emergency services, but Art finally emerged with the owner's son in tow and a smile on his face.

The campground developed behind this scary Clubhouse/Office. Although it was nothing fancy, it was not as loud as I feared it would be (sitting there waiting for Art listening to the jake brakes of trucks barreling down that stretch of I-5), and it was nearly empty. As we got set up, a huge, nearly full moon rose over the hills to our right, and although it was chilly, it was crystal clear and the canyon was full of wildlife. We watched a covey of quail jet around, heard the calls of many birds, and much to Pepé's delight, watched bunny rabbits dash all over the joint.

This place is owned by a Japanese American family and is quite an interesting spot. It features a swimming pool, putt putt golf course, and a clubhouse that advertises all kinds of activities in the busy months. Now, however, it is almost vacant. There were maybe two or three other vacationers in the campground. The other residents looked to be permanent or long-term transient, maybe with local construction crews or something. Maintenance was interesting. Very do-it-yourself like, although clean and pretty well kept. The bathrooms were clean and showers free with good hot water. But you could see it was on a very slow decline. They were making some efforts to grow some new trees along the edge of the park, maybe even add some RV spots along there, but it all seemed a little half-assed. But, they were out there on a Friday morning in off-season, tooling around the place on the maintenance cart, picking up odd twigs in the road, etc. Definitely an interesting spot. We can imagine it gets pretty busy there in the high season with lake goers, but we would probably stay there again in the off season if our path made it through their zone. There are a very limited number of RV parks from here through the whole Los Angeles basin, so finding one that is decent is good.