Five motor homes (three Tiffin coaches and two others (known as SOBs - some other brand; we are not exclusionary) and their owners gathered at the Railside RV Park in Williams, gateway to the Grand Canyon, the first week of July. We were the last to arrive, Wed., the 2nd.
Our trip over from Cedar Crest, about 370 miles, was fairly miserable; the dashboard A/C was not putting out cool air. Unfortunately, I did not come up with Plan B: run the generator and power the rooftop A/C from that, as the other Zias reminded me upon arrival. Live and sometimes Learn.
This group has pretty clear priorities - most of our group activities centered around meals, starting with dinner catered the first night by our RV park owners and staff. Breakfast the next morning was at a downtown restaurant. Pat and Tamara, the RV park owners, are great hosts and managers. They catered a breakfast and another dinner for us during the week we were there. Thursday morning Pat found a mechanic who came over and topped off the freon in our front A/C. Problem solved. Memo to self: check the A/C before the next hot-weather trip.
Just before we left home, daughter Heidi sent us a video of our twin grandsons running and dancing - they are especially turned on by the World Cup music.
[Technical Difficulties: Can't upload the video or find a way to link to it. Stay tuned.]
Susie said, "That does it. Williams is close enough to Las Vegas; Gotta see those boys. We'll go there after Williams." I agree, of course, so that's the plan.
Meanwhile, Friday evening, Susie and I went to Williams' Fourth of July parade, billed as the longest parade in Northern Arizona. Not sure how much competition there is for that title. Note, no fireworks in Williams that night because of fire concerns. Here's a selfie: it was a cool evening.
There were fire trucks and flags and horses and many organizations with floats and members marching or riding.
This young man directed traffic.
There was also a collection of old tractors on a side-street.
Saturday morning the highlight was this steam engine pulling the Grand Canyon train. Nice sky, huh. The steam engine is just used on selected Saturdays through the summer. We made reservations to do the regular Canyon trip on Wednesday.
The track runs right by our RV Park, appropriately named Railside, so morning and evening some of our group as well as Park management would run out and wave at the tourists. That's about as exciting as it gets.
The cable system in the RV Park doesn't carry ESPN (!) and I canceled satellite some time ago because we usually stay at parks that have cable TV. To follow the World Cup soccer games on Saturday, I had my choice between streaming the games on our computer and watching the cable-provided Spanish language channel that carried the games. Can't miss that Go-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-al!! call. The pictures came and went on both media, but I caught most of the games.
Sunday we drove the back way from Williams to the mining town of Jerome - 25 miles of paved highway through very scenic forests and meadows, with awesome views of the deserts below and distant mountain ranges, followed by 25 miles of somewhat primitive road winding, ascending, and descending the rest of the way to Jerome. This was a real scenic treat with some sense of adventure. Some scenes:
Great day for clouds.
On the last picture you can see the very narrow road carved into the side of the hill from whence we just came. Luckily, we didn't meet any 4-wheelers or other vehicles on the narrowest stretches with the greatest unprotected drop-offs or on the sharpest switchbacks.
We had planned on lunch in Jerome, but it was very crowded (Tourists!) and we couldn't find a decent place to park. Jerome is stacked on the side of a very steep hill, not an easy place to drive or walk. You can google it for some pictures and history. We drove the highway over the mountain from Jerome and down into the Prescott Valley to have lunch, then back to Williams via highways. We drove in rain much of the way after lunch and were glad to have driven the Jerome backroad before the afternoon rains began. We've had p.m. rains every day - very pleasant. However, today, Monday, it rained and hailed, small hailstones, very hard - put a hole in the plastic cover over our bathroom ceiling vent.
We've been a bit snakebite on this trip. First the A/C, then I realized that I had lost a wheel cover somewhere on the way over (probably related to the fact that I bought new tires the day before we left), then our toilet began squirting (clean) water every time we flushed it. We put off the last problem until we get home by packing some towels around and under the leak source and by making less frequent and quicker flushes. So far, so good.
We debated the last few days whether we would drive Tuzigoot to Vegas or leave it here and drive the Explorer. We thought about parking Tuzi at Joey and Heidi's, but not sleeping in it in the high temperatures there (oh, I should mention that the bedroom A/C is not working either). Also, I worried about the engine over-heating, particularly on the return climb from blazing desert to mountain heights. We decided to leave Tuzi here and drive to Vegas Friday morning - about 200 miles. Two days of RV park rental costs less than 400 miles of diesel fuel, and there would be less strain on us, so it was an easy decision.
Meanwhile, I contacted college friends, Wayne and Cindy Sjoberg, who live in nearby Flagstaff. We'll be getting together with them on Thursday.
Here are a few Williams scenes. It's very much a Route 66 town - Williams advertises itself as "the last town bypassed by I-40" -- October, 1984, as the sign below proclaims.
The world's largest Route 66 shield.
Downtown.
That's enough for now. Stay tuned for more reports.
Susie and Rob
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