Arizona is a fascinating state. The northern half is mountainous, has pine forests and is generally more temperate than the southern portion. We found ourselves in the cool temperatures of the Prescott National Forest one day and in the dry desert heat of Phoenix the next! We made several stops during our 10 days in this state, so I’ll hit the highlights. Let’s get to it!

We left Kanab, Utah on October 30th and stopped at Horseshoe Bend (Colorado River) in Page, Arizona. Due to a recently installed fence and historic low water levels, the iconic picture (that is seemingly everywhere) is difficult to capture. We snapped a few photos, hiked around the park, and ate our lunch before continuing our journey south.

The Grand Canyon

If you ask Mark which is his all-time-favorite National Park, then he will tell you that it’s the Grand Canyon. We spent two nights at the north rim of this iconic park. We still have a lot of bucket-list hiking to do in the Grand Canyon; however, it was late in the season and the weather was turning cold. We hiked along the rim, enjoyed the sweeping views and reveled in the quietness of the park.

Additionally, we conquered a ‘road trip food challenge’. Pizza! Yes, seriously! We figured out how to make pizza using our camper’s cooking equipment! We ate pizza, drank hard seltzer and watched Ohio State beat Penn State while camping in the Grand Canyon!

Sedona and the surrounding area

From the Grand Canyon, we drove further south and spent several days exploring Sedona, Cottonwood, Clarkdale and Jerome. A few highlights in the area:

• Sedona weather in early November is simply perfect. The sky was bright blue, the humidity was low and we were in shorts and t-shirts. It was perfect for hiking and vortex-seeking! Seemingly, a lot of people know this because Sedona was quite crowded!
• While in Sedona, we hiked to Bell Rock and visited Palatki and Tuzigoot Native American ruins. The Palatki ruins are 1200 years old and haven’t had a lick of restoration work performed!
• Cottonwood is locally known for their wine. The downtown area is cute with several wineries and tasting rooms!
• Clarkdale has a well-known restored train with daily trips through the Verde Valley. I tried securing train tickets, but I needed to plan more than a day in advance! Riding the train in Clarkdale is now on our ‘things to do next time’ list.
  • If you now have a Monkees song in your head, it’s called ‘The Last Train to Clarksville’ not ‘The Last Train to Clarkdale’. If you didn’t previously have that song in your head, well now ya do! 😉
• Jerome is known to be haunted. For real! If you don’t believe me, then you can fact check with Ghost Adventures (on the Travel Channel)! Those crazy kids visited the Jerome Grand Hotel in Season 4 and captured extensive paranormal footage! Aside from being haunted, Jerome is another cute town with kitschy stores and we enjoyed spending the afternoon exploring the area.

Our dear friends, Kevin and Sandy, own a mountain cabin outside of Prescott. We were fortunate to spend a weekend with them and enjoy their retreat. We explored abandoned mines, visited old train stations and met some of their friends. It was a great mini-vacation from the van and we had a wonderful time seeing our pals!

Saguaro National Park

From Prescott, we did a quick stop-over in Phoenix before continuing south to Tucson. We spent two days visiting Saguaro National Park. Saguaro doesn’t look like much on a map, but this park was totally worth the stop! The park is divided into two regions (one on each side of Tucson). The Tucson Mountain District reaches elevation over 8,000 feet and even gets snow in the winter! The Rincon Mountain District is the larger portion, sits at lower elevation and is more of a desert environment.

The Saguaro cacti are huge and they don’t grow ‘arms’ until they are at least 75 years old! The park has several hiking trails, backpacking opportunities and scenic drives. In addition to huge cacti, we saw petroglyphs and a roadrunner! Saguaro is a great park and enables all ability levels to view the awesome cacti under the beautiful Arizona sunshine.

Kartchner Caverns State Park

Just south of I-10 near Benson, Arizona is Kartchner Caverns State Park. We were looking for a place to spend the night after Saguaro and picked this park based on the proximity to the highway. We arrived in early afternoon and decided on a whim to visit the Kartchner Cavern! While I have no pictures to share of the cave, I can wholeheartly share the story of the park and a 👍 👍 to visit if you are in southeast Arizona!

This area of Arizona and New Mexico is filled with caves. In 1974, two men were ‘looking for a cave no one had ever found’ and they found one! They explored the enormous cave and kept it secret until they told the owners of the land (the Kartchers) about it in 1978. (Wait, isn’t that considered trespassing?) From there, the owners worked with the Arizona State Park Service for 10 YEARS to sell the cave to the parks. Kartchner Cavern State Park opened in November 2003. A small portion of Kartchner cave is open to the public and the only way to see it is on a guided tour. Both the cave and the tour are impressive.

Arizona was a bit of a whirlwind and we continued our quick pace for the next two weeks. We entered New Mexico on November 10th and had a flight out of Houston on November 24th. Our next post will cover 2 states and 5 National Parks in 14 days!

I hope you have a wonderful 2022 filled with all the things that make you happy! Thanks for following along on our adventures! 😘