Arizona - Third Time’s a Charm (June 29 - July 6, 2021)
“What was important wasn’t the fireworks, it was that we were together this evening, together in this place, looking up into the sky at the same time” - Banana Yoshimoto
Charley and I finally escaped the California heat by beelining it to the Arizona heat. For most RVers, spending any time in June in the Arizona desert doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but for us, it made total sense. If you know Charley well, you know that he prefers to do his own work on our vehicles and you might recall that we spent time at a campground in Arizona back in April that had an oil changing station. Charley changed the oil in the Excursion while we were there and it was time for another oil change so back to Holiday Palms RV Park in Quartzsite Arizona we went. It actually seemed super strange to be going back to an RV park that we had already been to. When we pull into a campground, in spite of the fact that we’ve done our research and read reviews, we really don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into. In a strange way, going back to Holiday Palms felt like going home. It was definitely hot in Quartzsite but bearable and we already knew the pool there would keep us cool and the staff would be friendly. We stayed two nights, just long enough for the oil change and a Silly Al’s pizza, before moving north to Prescott Arizona to enjoy the holiday weekend.
Spending the Fourth of July weekend in Prescott wasn’t exactly planned on purpose. Way back in February, before we really started booking the backend of our trip, we knew we needed to get something locked in for the Fourth of July. A friend had recommended Prescott and knowing we’d be in that general vicinity, we booked Point of Rocks RV Park just so we had a guaranteed spot. Like so many other things on this trip, luck was on our side and we picked the absolute perfect place to be for the holiday. I’m not sure there’s a more patriotic, pro-military, pro-law enforcement city in the whole country. Prescott is the home of the world’s oldest rodeo, which has taken place every year since 1888 (including a Covid friendly version in 2020). The town celebrates its Frontier Days along with the annual rodeo on the 4th of July weekend (or thereabouts). Since Prescott is in the northern part of Arizona, the temperatures were a little cooler and not quite as dry. We spent three beautiful days celebrating the good ol’ USA and we loved every minute of it.
We started out exploring Prescott on Friday morning July 2 like we have nearly every other town and city we’ve visited - by driving into town, parking the car, and walking around. We could see right away that the center of town was blocked off and we realized pretty quickly that we had just missed the annual kiddy parade. As we walked into the town square the kiddy parade awards were being presented by the new chief of police (a female!) who also happens to be the Kiwanis club president. We were sorry we missed the parade but were glad we got to see the kids accept their awards all dressed up in their red, white, and blue.
I can’t remember the last time Charley and I really celebrated the fourth of July. We haven’t made the drive into our hometown of Montrose for the parade in years usually because Charley was either working, had been working overnight, or had to be to work at 3 pm and I can’t tell you the last time we actually stayed up to watch a fireworks display (mostly because I can’t stay awake past 9 pm). We went all out celebrating in Prescott starting with the Frontier Days Parade on the morning of July 3rd. The parade reminded us so much of Montrose’s parade – about two hours long through the center of town, with vendors on “the green”.
On Sunday, July 4th we caught the last of Prescott’s eight “World’s Oldest Rodeo” performances for the year. This was one of those situations where I saw that it was happening, saw that there were a few tickets left, and just bought them having no idea what the venue looked like or where our seats would be. As it turns out we had excellent seats very near the center of the arena so we could see everything really well. Attending the rodeo was a lot of fun and a checkmark off my bucket list that I didn’t even know existed.
Along with the parade and rodeo, Prescott hosts a fireworks display at Watson Lake. Just so happens that our campground was right next to Watson Lake. Between the campground and the lake are huge rock formations called granite dells so we weren’t able to actually see the lake from the campground but the walk to the lake was only about a half-mile. The granite dells are pretty amazing to look at and reminded both Charley and me of the “jumbo rocks” in Joshua Tree National Park. We asked a nice man camping near us at if we’d be able to see the fireworks from our campsite. He told us to “walk down the path between sites 68 and 69, climb up on the rocks and you’ll have the perfect view”. He wasn’t kidding! We set out to do our rock climbing well before sunset so we knew we’d get up there safely (getting back down in the dark would be bad enough). The sunset, while we waited for the fireworks to begin, might have been even more spectacular than the fireworks themselves. We really lucked out by not having to drive anywhere that night, not having to pay the parking and admission fee, and not having to deal with the crowds of people. Because there was so much going on for the holiday, we weren’t able to explore Prescott and the surrounding areas as much as we would have liked but it felt good to enjoy a normal Fourth of July without Covid restrictions!
We left Prescott on the morning of July fifth and headed toward Gallup, New Mexico where we would spend one night. There was nothing special about our stop there, just a place to layover before moving on to Colorado. We did, however, make one fun stop before leaving Arizona. The Petrified Forest National Park was on our travel route so of course, we had to stop and lucky for us, it was RV friendly. The Petrified Forest isn’t as heavily trafficked as some of the other parks we’ve visited and I’m not quite sure why. The trees-turned-into-stone are millions of years old and are amazing to see! We didn’t stay long but it was the perfect place to stop for a picnic lunch. Just like our first trip through Arizona, we really enjoyed our stay the second time through! Arizona is definitely on our shortlist of states to visit again.
