April 9 - Sedona, Arizona

After visiting Tuzigoot National Monument and the historic mining town of Jerome we headed north to Sedona. After 40 minutes of circling in & out of parking lots/garages, we finally found a spot and had a quiet lunch at The Orchard (so-so food) before heading over the the Chamber of Commerce to get maps of Jeep trails. We loved the area around Sedona, but Sedona itself... well the touristy part... was just that, touristy, not our thing really.

Anyway, the weather was good enough to put the top down on the Jeep so we had a great time driving around looking at the scenery.

The touristy part of Sedona

Chimney Rock near Sedona

Maggie & Hannah

Our Jeep near Sedona

View from the Sedona airport view point

April 7 - Entering Arizona, on to Cottonwood

On Tuesday, we headed out of Gallup, NM for Cottonwood, AZ. We stopped at the Arizona Welcome Center just across the NM/AZ border for a few pics and then we were on our way. We decided we would just head straight to Cottonwood where we would be camping - Dead Horse State Park, which is a first come, first serve park instead of stopping at the Petrified Forest National Monument & Meteor Crater. We will hit those on the way home Saturday.

Arizona Welcome sign
Raymona, Maggie & Hannah

Yellowhorse Trading Post near the AZ Welcome Center

We took a quick detour off of I-40 at Winslow, AZ. We hoped to find some remnant from old Route 66 to eat lunch but didn't really. Winslow was a bit disappointing, I guess because of the Route 66 song, I thought maybe Winslow would be more 'touristy' or restored but nope, just a tired little town.

Maggie

Maggie, Hannah (sitting up), Bryan

Historic Winslow, AZ on Historic Route 66

In Flagstaff, we turned south on I-17 then took Hwy 89A through Sedona on into Cottonwood. What a magnificent road, that Hwy 89A - VERY scenic but also VERY winding and kinda narrow for RV's. Absolutely beautiful scenery that was tampered a bit by Hannah who gets car sick during mountainous, curvey roads. We arrived at Dead Horse around 4:30 and so glad we came straight there since there were only 6-7 campsites still open out of 150!! We picked a good site, #55, paid our fees and set up camp ready to do some exploring of the area.

Hwy 89A out of Flagstaff - heading south to Sedona

Hwy 89A heading to Sedona