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Back from vacation

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Misellus
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Back from vacation

#1 Post by Misellus »

I spent the past 2 weeks van-camping in Arizona with my dad and some friends (multiple vans). I loved it out there. Seriously reconsidering the move to Tennessee in favor of southern New Mexico or Arizona. Admittedly, this was when the temperature was 50s-60s rather than 90s, so I'd probably hate it later in the year.

Days 1-3 driving from Ohio to Tucson area.
Days 3-5 camping in the Saguaro National Forest/Sonoran Desert, plus visiting the Saguaro desert museum (desertmuseum.org)
Day 6 driving toward Petrified Forest in northern AZ, camped at Rosevelt Lake
Day 7 Petrified Forest, drive to Meteor Crater
Day 8 Meteor Crater then drive to Williams AZ (Route 66 kitch, "Gateway to the Grand Canyon")
Days 9-11 Grand Canyon
Days 12-13 drive home

Highlights:
The museum -- this place was great. Tons of cactuses and other desert plants/animals to look at. Absolutely worth the $25. We spent about 6 hours there.

The Grand F***ing Canyon! One of those places that pictures cannot do it justice (I will post some pictures though)


Low points:
Meteor Crater. This was just a tourist trap. Everything except the museum portion was closed because of bad weather and/or covid. Roughly 25 minutes of material and $25 to get in. It took us longer to drive there from the interstate than it took us to walk through it and watch all the videos. No hiking into the crater. Don't forget your $35 hat from the gift shop.

The drive. 55 hours not counting the drives between locations. Worth it in the end, but it also sucked.

We were supposed to spend 1-2 days along the Mogollon Rim but there was a snow storm that closed the roads. So we went to Petrified Forest instead.

Absolutely worth it. I enjoyed myself and already looking for another van-camping destination (just closer to home). I'll post some pictures soon. I need to clear off my phone and try to organize them somewhat first.

m-
Last edited by Misellus on March 25th, 2021, 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Misellus
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Re: Back from vacation

#2 Post by Misellus »

I don't remember which lookout point this was, but it's one of my favorite pictures
Image

Colorado River
Image

Another lookout point
Image

Huginn and Muninn
Image

Carl the Mountain Lion (at the museum)
Image

Saguaro cactus, can get up to 40 feet tall
Image

Ocotillo, these can get over 20 feet tall and have bright red/orange flowers in season
Image

Painted Desert
Image

Petrified wood
Image
Last edited by Misellus on March 25th, 2021, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Back from vacation

#3 Post by tay666 »

Glad you got out and had a good time.
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Re: Back from vacation

#4 Post by Scooke123 »

Sounds like a good trip overall.
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Re: Back from vacation

#5 Post by overspray »

What a great trip, sadly I've not yet seen most of these places. That's so disappointing about Meteor Crater. I'd always wanted to see that, not so much now. Not to distract from all the amazing natural beauty, there are two museums in Tucson that I found well worth the time. One is the Pima Air Museum which has benefited from close proximity to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan. The other is the Titan Missile Museum where you can take a tour of the silo. Nice side trips if you have the time.

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Re: Back from vacation

#6 Post by ShaneM »

Doesn't the canyon look like an oil painting. It's almost like it isn't real.
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Re: Back from vacation

#7 Post by temperflash »

overspray wrote:What a great trip, sadly I've not yet seen most of these places. That's so disappointing about Meteor Crater. I'd always wanted to see that, not so much now. Not to distract from all the amazing natural beauty, there are two museums in Tucson that I found well worth the time. One is the Pima Air Museum which has benefited from close proximity to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan. The other is the Titan Missile Museum where you can take a tour of the silo. Nice side trips if you have the time.
Years ago at the Adler Museum in Chicago I had a close encounter with a huge chunk of the devil's Canyon meteor.
The space rock which is almost solidly nickel iron has large tunnel like holes in it. Don't know how these were formed but of course when no one was looking I stuck my arm about two feet down into one tunnel, then pretended something inside had grabbed me. Freaked out the people near by.

They say a old west local industry sprang up at Devil's Canyon harvesting this excellent iron nickel alloy and making various implements including horse shoes.
I'd like to hunt down a dump site loaded with scrap iron from those forges.

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Re: Back from vacation

#8 Post by kevtk135 »

Glad you enjoyed the trip. The southwest is my favorite, and I too will prolly be retiring there.
Years ago wifey and I started in Albuquerque (Central Ave. in Albq =Rte. 66) and followed "Rte.66" into Flagstaff. Many of these towns have now gone back and are taking advantage of the nostalgia for the Mother Rd.

Sorry Meteor Crater wasn't what you thought. We were there 20+ years ago before my son was born, and when went back to show him the site, things had changed. Yes, it seems that new management has come in and made changes to I guess bring in more money. When we were there there was a lot of construction being done inside, and the food counter had been given over to a commercial co. (Subway?) I forget.
As you left the Interstate and was heading to the crater about a 1/3 of the way there you would have seen this "dirt" road to the left, with the stone ruins of a bldg. on a rise a few hundred yards down the road. That road WAS the original Rte. 66 , and the building on the rise was Ninninger's Meteorite Museum. The guy was the father of meteoritics in the US. A very popular guy - during the Depression he was paying people for rocks that looked a certain way (meteorites). When I got there I asked about it. The person at the front was surprised I knew about it and when I asked if I could go for a look - the road had a chain across it - I was told to just "be careful." Anyway enuff history...
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