Page to Rio Verde RV Park in Cottonwood, AZ….a hard day.

 

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Today’s 207 mile journey.

We left the PageLakePowell Campground around 9:30am with about a four hour journey ahead of us.  We wound our way through the dumb roundabout to get onto 89 South and were soon on our way. 

Looks like we’ll be going up soon.

Antelope Pass came on in a hurry and it was high, narrow and steep.

Going up fast and looking down.

Big cut in the rock up ahead.

The turns were tight and 50mph was too fast.

Down we went at a steep grade. 

A huge drop off to the right and the huge rim of rock in the distance.

Still going down.  I admit I was holding on through this pass as it made me quite uneasy.

We’re down. 

A long straight very humpy, bumpy ribbon of pavement.  The road was horrible from just south of the Antelope Pass to just north of the town of Gray Mountain.  All of this highway is in the Navajo nation and would likely be under federal jurisdiction and is not even slightly flat.  I was afraid that the dishes would be all over inside the cupboards it was so rough.   Very Mexican type road which we didn’t expect in Arizona.  It is just exhausting to travel on road that is so rough.

Within this stretch of highway just north of Gray Mountain is Cameron.  This is the town at the beginning of Highway 64 which goes into the Grand Canyon.  A multitude of street lights and good highway for about a mile.

Small towns dot the highway as we travel south.  The highway south of the Navajo Nation was better but not great.

Going down before we head up into Flagstaff.

You can see the pavement isn’t flat here either.  Maybe it’s fine in a car but it’s sure not in a truck pulling a large 5th wheel.

Up high again and there are pine trees.

We are leaving Flagstaff and heading south on I17.  We won’t take 89A to Sedona as it is mountainous and there are areas with huge switchbacks.  The sign farther on said no vehicles over 50ft and pulling the rig we are close to that.

No thanks.  I’d tried to book us into an RV park in Sedona which was very expensive (artsy, fartsy, Zen town!) but they had no room until after American Thanksgiving.   

Heading down out of Flagstaff and the hill goes on for……

18 miles!

The rim off to the right.

Oh goody….only 14 miles more to go.  The diesel engine on our truck does a good job of holding the trailer back as we go down these steep hills.  Very seldom have to use the brakes. 

We took the exit off I17 to Highway 30 which heads west to Cottonwood and the Rio Verde RV park.  I was apprehensive about the park as the reviews weren’t great, but….it was all I could find.

When we pulled into the park it was as bad as some of the reviews said.  The young woman on the desk was nice and we went out to view the site where we would be parked.  The park is old, full of fulltimers and quite shabby.  We walked up the gravel road along the small Rio Verde River to the dead end where we would have to turn around and come back to park.  There was a Hydro Power Line company working where we were to turn around and they had two line trucks and three pick-ups in the way.  They said they’d move and we went back to check-in.  We weren’t happy with the spot we were given so we changed to a slightly wider one.  After a lot of wiggling around at the end of the road we drove a back down and parked.  The 5th wheel is hugely canted to the passenger side and it’s like being on a boat. 

What else …..well they say there is internet but of course there isn’t.   The washrooms could use a good scrub and the laundry facilities are adequate but grossly overpriced.  We’ll just have to make do as there are so many people these parks can charge what they want and not deliver the services they say they have.  We complained about the internet and were told that no one else had complained….well that doesn’t mean that it’s working.  Insulting!  If it doesn’t work, say so and don’t lie about it.

Looking over the bank behind our site.

Parked in a row coming down the hill.  Pictures make things look a lot better than they really are.

Looking up and….

and looking down the road.  We are quite far from the main road but we can still hear the traffic roaring although the sound of the water rushing by and the cicadas drowns some of it out. 

Looks level but it’s not.

Behind the rig.

Den of a varmint.  I saw him but didn’t get a picture.  Looked like a large ground squirrel. 

We had showers, beer, dinner and watched the BlueJays and felt a little better about the day. 

It’s all better when you are in your own space with your own things. 

Kanab, Utah to Page Lake Powell Campground

 

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Today’s short 75 mile journey. 

Heading up the hill east on 89 to Page.  The RV sign on the right is where I initially tried to book at the Hitch-N-Post.  They didn’t have room and the Crazy Horse Campground just up the hill on the left didn’t get good reviews.  However….it didn’t look bad when I walked by and you really can’t believe everything you read on the RVparkreviews site. 

Page….74 miles.

Once we got up the hill out of Kanab it was a wide open straight stretch of highway.   Pretty enough in it’s own way. 

There are construction signs everywhere and usually no one is around.  This time they were painting lines.

Even here the cliffs have an unreal look to them.  Every time I glance at them Eric says  “  That’ll be $5 bucks!”   Everywhere you go in the states there is a charge and it really irks him.

This rock formation was standing all alone. 

Kind of looks like cutting a chocolate bar and looking inside.

Another $5 buck view!

This was another rock formation standing alone….kind of looks like three giants standing shoulder to shoulder.  Very unusual.

Here the rock is very dark grey with what looks like concrete at the bottom.

This one looks like a volcano or an upside down ice cream cone.

There are the three smoke stacks that I saw in the distance and the info about them is below.

Very hazy.

This blurb was taken from the Wikipedia website.  

Navajo Generating Station is a 2250 megawatt coal-fired powerplant located on the Navajo Indian Reservation, near Page, Arizona, United States. This plant provides electrical power to customers in Arizona, Nevada, and California. It also provides the power for pumping Colorado River water for the Central Arizona Project, supplying about 1.5 million acre feet (1.85 km³) of water annually to central and southern Arizona. As of 2013 permission to operate as a conventional coal-fired plant is anticipated until December 22, 2044.^[3] The Navajo Generating Station is the United States of America's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide

 

Here we are parked in the PageLakePowell Campground and it is very nice.  Less than $30 per night and the sites are huge.  There are 360 sites and I guess if it was full it could really be noisy.  There are a huge amount of boats here that all go out on Lake Powell so it is a very busy area.  When we were set up I tried posting a blog and wouldn’t you know it the internet was smoking fast and I managed to post two big blogs.   The internet in the Kanab RV Corral park was ultra crummy.

After lunch we went out to check out the route out of town and have a look at the Glen Canyon bridge and dam.  You pass over this as you come into town.

Holding back the water that creates Lake Powell.

We walked out onto the bridge and I shot these pictures by putting my lens through the chain link fence.  A long way down.

The walkway that goes to the west side of the river and the visitor’s centre.

No bungee jumping or sky diving off this bridge.

We drove over to the visitor’s centre so I could take pictures of the bridge and the dam.

 

Looking north to the beginning of Lake Powell  The little dots on the water are boats.  Speed boats, big and small….house boats, big and small.   Lots and lots of boats.

 

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A massive body of water.  We are right at Glen Canyon and the water goes on for ever.

Looking down into the dam.

Remember the Major John Wesley Powell the surveyor I wrote about when we visited the North Rim well here he is again and they named a lake after him.   I must be related to him….okay….definitely not. 

Glen Canyon Dam dedicated by Lady Bird Johnson in 1966.

This explains how the power is generated.  Kind of like a pelton wheel. 

One of the used stainless steel turbine runners.

We drove around town and got beer.  30 pack of Bud Lite $19.99 and 10% off because I’m a senior.  I’d rather pay more and be younger!

On the way back to the park we checked out the exit out of town and it’s a very artsy round a bout.  The whole town of Page has wiggling roads and all sorts of artsy traffic diversions that were probably done back in the 60’s.  What’s wrong with a four way stop or a traffic light.  Huge probability of an accident in a round a bout especially with all the heavy truck traffic using it.

Boats stored everywhere.

So….we like this park.  I only booked one night and tomorrow we’ll move on to Cottonwood, AZ for three nights.  Oh by the way this park also has good digital cable, laundry, showers etc.  A good stop.