The weather last night was a little exciting offering up some rain, lightning and thunder but nothing bad happened where we were. Over in Wickenburg, AZ, the storms overnight generated a large amount of uncontrolled runoff swamping some ‘hoods and giving stupid motorists opportunities to drive their motor vehicles into deep water. Several stupid motorists were identified, some by having their pictures shown on the news and some by internet. News of idiocy travels fast. Peggy and I have heard newspersons note that some of the four-wheeled submarine drivers are actually cited under a law they refer to as “The Stupid Motorist Law.” Seems like an excellent idea since the law apparently punishes the stupid, entertains the populace and fines are used to augment the tax dollars previously stolen from us.
Just after leaving our spot at the TT Verde Valley RV Resort we pulled onto I-17 southbound toward Phoenix. The on-ramp is right at the bottom of an enormous, steep hill and poor Charlotte had to work hard to climb to the summit about 3,000 feet higher than Cottonwood. All the cooling fans were running. We sailed over the top, got some great mountain views for about 20 miles and then the rain started. Arizona roads are not really made to address drainage issues so we soon started passing over pavement with water ponding on the surface and we were getting passed by semis doing about 80 while concealed within a giant cloud of spray that blinded those of us behind. Oddly, we only passed by one wreck but he apparently spun, flipped, yawed and generally lost it. The driver was elsewhere but the car he left behind is toast.
The miserable weather persisted right up until we pulled into our temporary digs at Paradise RV Resort in Sun City, a suburb of Phoenix. The park is a big Jose with maybe 1,000 spaces, most of which are occupied by park model RVs filled with geriatric tenants who live here permanently. “Permanent” doesn’t mean they cannot voluntarily leave, it means once they move in they never move out, except in a hearse. The park has great utilities, big spaces, no wi-fi, good TV reception on the antenna, no cable TV and no remote restrooms so your trailer better be self-contained or you are out of luck. Security led us to our spot and helped us back in by interfering with the possibly cumbersome but familiar technique Peggy and I have created. After only a few too many changes of direction, we got the Invader squared away. We hooked up, retreated into the air conditioned space and called it a day.

Today is our last day to stay in Cottonwood for this trip and we really hadn’t thought of much to do today, maybe because there isn’t much to do around here unless you are interested in scoping out the spiritual guidance options up in Sedona. You can always enjoy the spectacular geology here but even that would require some driving which was contrary to our lack of enthusiasm regarding real effort.
Instead, since Peggy was reluctant to give me any options for her recent birthday, I took her to a J. C. Penney store here in town. Peggy allowed me to accompany her while shopping for bras even though I am grumpy in the women’s interesting underwear section if Peg won’t let me model the women’s briefs on my head. She was successful at finding some socks in addition to some interesting underwear and we left the store without breaking the $100 lower limit. Peggy inquired about swim wear but was told the summer is over here (it is about 100 degrees this October) and the store reduced their cost right before they disappeared into the overstuffed bags of voracious bargain hunters who believe autumn is not quite here yet.
On the way back from Cottonwood, we drove down two forest service roads to areas where free camping is allowed. It is quite evident why free camping is allowed because the area is free of cumbersome utility connections for luxuries like power, water or sewer in addition to being free of pleasant vistas or other redeeming features. The roads are dirt with sections of jagged rocks protruding through the uneven surfaces. Strewn among the bargain hunting RVers camping in this unremarkable vacant land you can spot where some campers have abandoned their former homes to recyclers and camper strippers who have slithered in and carelessly practiced their craft, leaving only the carcasses of the now-worthless assets. It is quite scenic for those enjoying the almost vacant junkyard motif. We did spot some tenacious desert flora about 2 feet tall, eliminating anything like privacy for those selecting this area for their enjoyable camping experience.
This area is liberally supplied with absolutely stunning geology and some great parks and monuments. It is also afflicted with the nonsense of Sedona with it’s gurus, spiritual hooey and crystal worship. It is a bit of a tragedy that the municipality of Sedona is located in a visually astonishing treasure but, since I don’t live here, it shouldn’t bother me. I would happily return here to see the magnificent surroundings even though polluted with the strange vortex thing of Sedona. Maybe it isn’t really a vortex. Maybe it is a whirlpool designed to suck the money out of your wallet only to have it delivered to the free-range chicken skin man purse of some local witch doctor. I personally think that perceived benefits from invisible unidentifiable sources of energy/juju/bliss are probably bullshit and suggested only by those obtaining financial enrichment from the gullibility of persons who really are not sick. Artificial remedies are probably the most effective combatting imaginary afflictions.
Later this afternoon, when outdoor conditions become acceptable for human life, I will break down our utility connections and slide-out supports, stow our outdoor furniture and generally prep for travel to Phoenix tomorrow. Oh Boy! New stuff.

After our complete lack of success doing the laundry yesterday, we got going a bit earlier and took our 3 cubic yards of clothes down to the facility for cleaning. It was probably terrible for Peggy although it didn’t bother me much because she did all the work while I was holding down the fort in the Family Center. Oddly, it turns out that Peggy is able to do the laundry very quickly when she isn’t ably assisted by me.
After Peggy completed both her half and my portion of the laundry, we decided to take another exploratory drive around the Cottonwood area. This time, we decided to go east since we had already gone north to Sedona a couple times and had also gone west to Jerome and Clarkdale. That decision may not have been particularly wise because we found that there is an ample supply of nothing combined with bleak wasteland east of our RV park.
We revised our strategy and went west instead. Although we had already cruised through this area, we decided to give it another go. In Cottonwood we found a park adjacent to the Verde River which really isn’t very verde but mostly brown. In this park they have something called the “Jail Trail,” a properly descriptive moniker if there ever was one. The trail takes hikers out through some perfectly ordinary riparian areas next to the river so we wandered out for a bit before turning around and seeing the back side of the nothing we saw on the way out. It is a nice enough walk but the trail has been liberally sprinkled with dog doo so you should watch your step.
After enough strolling to ascertain there was nothing we wanted to see down the Jail Trail, we headed back to Verde Valley RV Resort after filling up Charlotte’s diesel tank at a Fry’s grocery where the price was a wonderful $2.19 per gallon. Soon we will be in the tarnished Golden State where gold is required to purchase fuel because it is impossible to carry enough cash to fill the tank.

Our scheduled event for today was to do the dreaded laundry in the campground laundry facility. However, we got a very slow start, choosing instead to lounge around, watch TV and perform almost any function other than washing clothes until around 4:00 PM.
The laundry facility here has machines that only take a card to pay for the machines to function. This is a clever strategy by park management to enrich themselves since the card itself costs something and actual usable funds hidden in it’s little electronic mind must be purchased in $5 increments. The cost of the machine use does not have any multiples that divide $5 evenly so the park management ends up with the difference, generally about $4.
After our almost full day of doing nothing, we took off just after 4:00 PM to go to the park store to buy the management-enriching laundry required to be used in the laundry which is housed in a different building than the store. We had all our laundry aboard Charlotte and I dropped Peggy off at the store to purchase the card while I turned the truck around. The laundry is open from 8:00 AM to 11:30 PM but, unfortunately, the cards needed to do the wash are only available until 4:00 PM so we had narrowly missed the boat and went back home. Maybe tomorrow.

Today was set aside as our day to explore the Sedona area. We got up at a reasonable hour, ate breakfast and took off up I-17 north toward Sedona. We turned off I-17 on the Red Rocks Scenic Parkway and moseyed into town making a couple of stops to take pix. The rock formations are gorgeous in this area. We found that at least some of the spots where you can park are under the control of the U.S. Forest Service and do not require incessant contributions to the iron ranger conspicuously posted in all the parking areas if you were clever enough to own a federal lands access pass. We got to park for free in the lot where we stopped although during the day we found numerous other small lots where the feds or the state have farmed their lack of services out to a concessionaire whose sole function seems to be to make you pay.
Sedona itself is chock-full of businesses that cater to ardent believers in vortexes, soul enrichment through dubious strategies, crystal wizardry, spiritual guidance by affluent, strangely-dressed practitioners and personal improvement of a type where results cannot be measured, identified or reproduced. If you are one of those thinking there must be more to life than that which can be proven, then this is the place for you to come for continued disappointment with life. However, if you are the type that does not need mysterious regimens to enjoy life, then the nature scenery here is truly extraordinary and worth passing through the gauntlet of shit to see.
The gorgeous local geologic formations surround the vile, disgusting town. Some apparently very rich folks have built enormous estates that project their magnificent ugliness into the vistas but it is quite easy to ignore these folks’ monuments to excessive consumption by merely looking up. The assholes can only build so high.
We spent quite a bit of time being awed by nature before heading up the back road between Sedona and Flagstaff. This drive is spectacular and, before long, we came to Slide Rock State Park. At the entrance to the park they have done away with the possibly informative presence of a human ranger replacing it with a sluggish, dull-witted iron ranger that makes you part with $10 per car and $3 a head for any number of passengers exceeding four carried within the vehicle.
The $10 entry fee ends up being a very good deal. The park is beautiful. There is a very well-maintained homestead residence and apple processing barn, a great river area accessible for swimming, slimy rocks beneath the running water on which you can slide downriver and great places to just sit and enjoy the stunning surroundings while having a picnic. The road from Sedona is a bit squirrely but the trip is definitely worth the terror induced by the poorly engineered and maintained highway.
After Peggy and I had some lunch and got to play with dogs wisely brought for us to play with by their owners, we departed the park and drove back into the Sedona area armed with a map we had acquired from the almost completely concealed and difficult to access visitor information center in town. For those of you contemplating a visit here, go through the Hyatt parking lot, turn right down the road where the VIC is supposed to be located and immediately find a street parking space because the adjacent parking lot only seems to have an exit. If you miss your parking opportunity, turn right twice more and circle around through the Hyatt parking lot again. If you are looking for road maps of the area, go to the USGS because the Sedona Chamber of Commerce does not have road maps or only staffs their info centers with folks unfamiliar with the concept of road maps.
By random perusal, we were able to acquire a map showing 4-wheeler routes around the area and we used this resource to find all the roads leading away from town that did not have spiritual guidance scouts at the other end of them. As it turned out, most of the paved sections had small parking lots or turnarounds at the end of the paved sections and the passages up these roads were truly gorgeous with plenty of views of wildlife and colorful rock formations. We were passed by numerous pink Jeeps driven by vendors taking very well-dressed yahoos along the dirt sections of the roads from town. None of the Jeeps seemed to be even slightly dusty or muddy so I surmise the dirt roads must not be too challenging, even for normal cars. Some roads have signs indicating that high clearance vehicles should be the only vehicles to proceed past the sign and we followed their advice.
Our entire exploration loop today only covered about 60 miles but the scenery was so fantastic that it ended up taking us just less than six hours giving us an average speed of ten miles per hour. About 35 of the 60 miles was freeway so that should be some indication of the time it took us to truly appreciate the views on the 15 miles of sightseeing. Sedona itself is quite unremarkable but the country surrounding it is absolutely magnificent and worth the effort of spending a day here.

I would love to regale my very limited readership with interesting stories of our adventures but today we took the day off from doing anything. We hunkered down in the Barbarian Invader, turned on the air conditioning and watched old TV reruns for a good part of the day. It is just too hot to venture outside today.
It is about 2:30 PM as I write this and the temperature is rising. Our indoor/outdoor thermometer indicates 101.2 and rising. TGFAC (Thank God For Air Conditioning.)

Today is Peggy’s birthday.
We have discovered one absolute truth here in Cottonwood at the Verde Valley RV Resort. This place is hotter than hell. The humidity sometimes gets up to 10%. These reasons must be why they refer to this place as a desert. We decided to get going early in the morning, skipping the normal cooking of breakfast and choosing instead to eat in a restaurant called Randal’s. I tried my usual unhealthy fare of chicken fried steak which also came with hash browns, eggs and biscuits and gravy. It was good although I would have preferred to get a little more steak and a few less biscuits. Peggy selected bacon and eggs and thought it was great maybe because they gave her too much bacon. I helped her with the inadvertent overstock.
From Randal’s we drove first to Montezuma Well. The well is located at the top of a hill and is really a small lake or pond with continuous replenishment by springs located in the bottom of the disgusting green water. The water is apparently 80 times richer in carbon dioxide than real water so drinking without treatment is out. There are bright red and vibrant blue damsel flies hanging out in the bushes at the rim. The water from the well dumps into the Verde River although it should more properly be called the Cafe River because it is not green.
It was only about 105 degrees when we were there and little shade is available so we departed after strolling around the well rim. We drove a few miles down the road to Montezuma Castle National Monument. Oddly, Montezuma had nothing to do with this place but some of the white early explorers in the area ignorantly thought the locals were Aztecs because they looked like Indians. There is also no castle. Instead, there are quite a few cliff dwelling pueblos where the Sinagua people lived for about 400 years. The pueblos are pretty neat and they must have been built pretty well because they are still here despite the efforts of grave robbers, unauthorized collectors and thieves. This park has ample shade protecting the tourists from complete desiccation as they roam on the walkways through the Monument. The entry fee is $8 a head but our federal pass got us in free.
Since we were shriveling up like ticks on a skillet in the dry, broiling environment we chose to return to our air conditioned Invader for the miserably hot part of the day. It ended up being hot until about 9:00 at night but we did step out just after dark for a whirlwind trip to Scab-Mart for food and booze. When we returned from shopping, Peggy bailed out of Charlotte and started walking toward the Invader when she noted a life form wriggling in the bushes near the back of the trailer. This particular life form was covered with long hair that was almost all black except for the two white stripes down his back. The skunk was happily feeding on some bird food Peggy had generously dumped on the ground for the birds but it seemed the birds were not going to get any because the skunk was soon joined by one of his relatives and four raccoons who were very efficient at cleaning up everything on the ground. They also tag-teamed the shepherd’s crook we had installed to hold our bird feeder and toppled it, cleaning out the feeder’s contents by morning. It was a massacre.

It was our first real day for exploration in the Cottonwood area and we elected to go see some local stuff touted as nifty in the brochures we picked up at the Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce visitor information center. The cleverly created map we initially used for getting to the mining town of Jerome, AZ, was highly imaginative in nature and entirely inaccurate in reality.
After only getting bollixed up once in Cottonwood by being trapped in a parking lot with no exits and subsequently misled near Clarkdale where the map deviated substantially from the actual road configuration, we found the road to Jerome. This was a town established by copper mining employment and it appears that scads of people used to live on the steep side hills surrounding the mine. Miners can be clever builders and the structures in Jerome are proof of their tenacity and absolute lack of engineering expertise. Old buildings are built atop the even older but flimsy former buildings. The result is a quaint assembly of interesting but structurally horrifying structures that have entries at grade level on one side and tall columns, hastily constructed retaining walls and sheet wall systems on the other. If you enter by the front door you will be as safe as anybody in a war zone but if you exit by the back door the fall will probably kill you. The streets are lined with old, seismically susceptible-to-failure buildings containing bars, antique stores, restaurants and tourist hangouts. If you don’t look at the foundations, walls, columns, beams or streets closely, you will probably enjoy the place.
The town is located halfway up the side of a very steep mountain so the views out across the valley are terrific. The road up and back is very narrow and Peggy kept the speed down for fear of plunging off the side into oblivion. Once we had made a pass through Jerome, we headed down the hill and stopped at a sandwich place called #1 Sandwich Shop that published an ad in our Verde Valley RV Resort guide alleging that they offered “The BEST sandwich you’ll ever have.” Their advertisement is not quite true but the sandwiches were okay and we devoured them at a picnic table in the nearby Tuzigoot National Monument. Tuzigoot is right next to the town of Clarkdale and consists of a hilltop pueblo ruin where maybe 225 Sinagua lived. There is a walkway around the ruins and you can actually climb to the very top of them but Peggy and I stayed on the loop trail because we could do it the fastest that way. It was a bit over 100 degrees but it was a dry heat since the humidity was 5%. There was no shade on the loop. After a bit of human barbecue here, we hopped back into Charlotte, turned the air conditioning to ramming speed and sped home to our Barbarian Invader and cold air Nirvana.

Today was a moving day. We disconnected our umbilical cords from Meteor Crater RV’s utilities and headed west on I-40 toward Flagstaff, AZ. It is about 35 miles over and 2,000 feet up to the I-17 junction in Flagstaff where we turned south towards Sedona and Cottonwood, AZ. The section of I-17 just south of I-40 passes through some vibrant conifer forests before dropping about 3,700 feet in about 18 miles of highway. Numerous signs adjacent to the road warn motorists to save their brakes on the way down because if you don’t, you plunge over the side to certain death. We chose the chicken option and kept Charlotte’s and the attached Barbarian Invader’s speed down so we didn’t come out at the bottom going 200 miles per hour.
Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned west on CO-280 toward Cottonwood. After a few miles we pulled into Verde Valley RV Resort, a TT campground. They call all TT parks “resorts” although they really aren’t. This park has three or four main RV areas but the really nice spots are pre-filled by folks who either own seasonally or permanently here. The main areas have irrigated grass, power, water and sewer hookups, tables for each spot, a hot tub for the thermally defective, a pool and terrible wi-fi. Our dreadful phone has very sketchy service on phone calls and the data transmission rates are negligible. The good part is that we are TT members and all this is free. We were not blessed with getting a terrific spot near the river gully but we did get one that is private and all the utilities work. We have good shrub cover on 3 sides and Charlotte blocks the road so we have a nice, quiet outside porch although it is hotter than hell. There is no 50 amp electrical service for some reason but we are okay with 30 amps.
We set up and since today’s drive from Meteor Crater was short, we had plenty of time left in the day for some exploration. As soon as we looked north, we could see the absolutely stunning red, orange, yellow, white and gray cliffs in Sedona, about 20 miles distant. We chose to do some snooping around that way and soon were driving among the same gorgeous cliffs. They are truly awe-inspiring but some types have elected to give mystical powers to the surroundings with claims about spiritual vortex thingies, wellness nodes, self improvement imaginary mechanisms and unfettered capitalism.
Driving in Sedona is a nightmare for two reasons. The first is that spiritual gurus and proponents of mystical health strategies seem to be very poor drivers. The second reason is that the terrain on both sides of the main street is magnificent and only the most jaded can resist slowing to just look around. To give the motorized traveler more difficulties, the main drag has numerous businesses with funny names touting all sorts of mystical shit to make you more whole, healthy, honest, dishonest, sensitive, in touch with something, human or allegedly better. We saw possibilities for pink Jeep rides, personal enrichment, gluten-free Mexican food, the purchase of chia seeds and goji berries (whatever they are), spiritual healing (in case your spirit consumed too much peyote or broke it’s leg), workshops for those bozos convinced that chatting about something will change it, guides for those seeking wisdom and the annual Sedona Yoga festival. According to those selling these services in Sedona, this is the spot for holistic healing, psychic readings, dream analysis, past life regression and massage, vortex hikes, yoga at alleged vortex sites and general personal bad juju reduction.
Those touting Sedona allege that Sedona itself is something they refer to as a vortex, a perceived point at which earth is believed to emit swirling waves of energy. They have no proof. The types of energy allegedly emitted is of an unspecified, unmeasurable nature that can only be properly identified by those with vortex identifying superpowers. There seems to be no local acknowledgement that tornadoes, dust devils, whirlpools and the stuff spinning down the john are vortexes and have scant use in personal enrichment but may contribute to personal impoverishment, property destruction and environmental messiness.
Regardless of the hooey abundantly offered by charlatans, con men and quacks, the scenery in and around Sedona is spectacularly beautiful. Leading from downtown is the Red Rock Scenic Highway which takes you back to reality and I-17. This road passes through some terrific scenery before joining the freeway that took us back to Cottonwood. There are a few pull-outs along the road but anyplace you want to park costs $5 and each place levies the fee so it would be easy to spend $25 just stopping to take a few pictures and read some interpretive signs. We will return here before leaving the area but only after we research the route to see what we want and not a business route through strange businesses staffed entirely be wierd0s and crystal salespeople.

Today’s list of must-do functions was limited to checking out Meteor Crater, the original reason we parked in this part of Arizona. I was a really good guy and cooked up some breakfast before Peggy threatened to have her way with me. We finally got rolling about noon and drove the 5 miles up to the Meteor Crater visitor center. We had a discount card from our campground and I am ancient so I got two discounts, Peggy got one and the visitor center cashier got $30.
The visitor center is quite nice, not very large but well air conditioned which is fortunate because it was toasty outside. We sat down and watched their informational movie where we learned the meteor that made the big splash here was about the size of a bus and was moseying along at 26,000 miles per hour when it reorganized the local terrain.
We strolled outside into the inferno-like sun and were rewarded with a magnificent view of the 550′ deep, 4,000′ diameter crater created when the rock hit the earth. They believe everything within about 10 miles was vaporized by fallout, blistering heat and explosive magnificence some 50,000 years ago when the chunk of iron and nickel hit the earth. 150 million tons of rock and impact products were blasted from the hole, leaving the monstrous crater visible today.
We finished giving the Crater a sniff and returned to the Invader for lunch supplies before taking off on another local loop drive through the Navajo Indian rez a bit north of I-40 between Winona and Leupp Corners – about a 60 mile round trip. This part of the world has some extraordinarily beautiful desert and mesa scenery and, next year when we have more time, we hope to return.
We ran into some of our fellow RVers as we bought fuel today and a pithy comment might have been made about some of our geriatric counterparts. The fellow RVers were traveling in an very upscale and expensive motorhome called a “Phaeton,” sometimes referred to by us as a “Pharton.” The believe the comment went something like “Just because you own a Phaeton doesn’t mean your wife doesn’t shave her moustache.”