A timelapse of driving the coach 95 miles from Cottonwood / Verde Valley, Arizona to Williams, Arizona.
Author: David
Travel from Verde Valley to Williams, AZ
We drove our coach 95 miles, a bit less than two hours, from Verde Valley to Williams, Arizona.
Here’s the route map, going from bottom to top:
Instead of the Thousand Trails park, we originally were going to stay at Verde Ranch RV Resort. But we were glad we changed it, not only because the TT was much cheaper, and with a great view, it was also much more quiet, instead of being right next to the freeway:
A cliff by I-17:
A sign warning of elk:
Hey look, trees! Real pine trees! We’ve been in deserts for months, so haven’t seen real trees for ages:
Snowy mountains:
Paladin was comfy in his safe space next to my chair:
Snow by the side of the road:
Approaching Williams:
A sign for the Grand Canyon Railway depot:
Williams arch, “gateway to the Grand Canyon”:
Our destination, the Grand Canyon Railway RV park:
The timelapse video for this trip will be coming later today.
Baseball: Mariners Spring Training
We attended a Mariners Spring Training game in Peoria, Arizona.
Spring training for the Mariners is held at Peoria Sports Complex. Here’s a satellite view, showing where our seats were located, right behind home plate:
The view from our seats:
A wide-angle view:
The starting lineup:
As is traditional, the game was kicked off with a singing of the national anthem:
Ichiro watched the game:
Play ball!
Hit:
A confused bee thought Jenn’s new Mariners cap looked like a flower (which, fair enough, it does):
The stands:
Some more baseball:
KC scored a run:
Conference on the mound:
Mariners run:
Pitcher warming up:
The hydro challenge is a fun tradition:
Seventh inning stretch:
There were some baseball scouts sitting behind us:
Run:
2,730 attendance:
Another run:
Hit:
More hits:
But not enough; the final score was Royals 11, Mariners 4:
The victors:
Outside the Peoria Sports Complex:
Despite our team losing, we enjoyed the game. We may look into attending a Mariners game when we’re in the Seattle region later this year; it’s been ages since we’ve attended a game.
Dash cover
While at the FMCA convention, one of the things we bought for our coach was a carpeted cover for our dash, from Shade Pro.
We just told the vendor our coach model and the color, and they had it ready for us the next day.
It has a grippy back, cutouts for the vents, and a separate piece for the pull-out passenger tray:
Jerome, AZ
On the way home from Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments, we had a quick drive through Jerome, Arizona, an interesting cliff-side “ghost” town.
Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments
We visited the Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments in Arizona.
The Montezuma Castle National Monument consists of two parts, separated by a few miles: Montezuma Castle, and Montezuma Well.
Montezuma Castle is a 20-room Indian pueblo ruin, built into a cliff:
Info:
Model:
View from a distance:
Info:
Visitor center:
Montezuma Well is part of the same National Monument, but physically separated:
Well Come:
Info:
A park ranger had a snake (rattlesnake, I think?) in a bucket, that he had caught near a path (snake warning, Mom!):
The snake wasn’t having a good day:
A structure built into the cliff above the well:
The well:
A ranger and Jenn talking about the info:
Ducks:
Steps leading down to the well:
Ruins:
Water is flowing into the well, so of course it has to have an outlet:
Outlet stream:
Steps:
We then went to the Tuzigoot National Monument, ruins of a hilltop pueblo village:
Tuzigoot museum:
Info:
Walls:
Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV & Camping Resort
We stayed at the Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV & Camping Resort in Cottonwood, Arizona. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Normally with Thousand Trails you choose your own site, but in this park the 50 amp sites are all separately reserved, with assigned sites. Totally worth the upgrade, though; they are also much larger sites, with great views.
Dates:
- Check in: 2022-03-27
- Check out: 2022-03-30
- 3 nights
Weather:
- Sunny, rain one day
- High temps ranging between 58 and 86°F, lows around 41-47°F
- Fairly windy
Noise:
- No road or train noise
- Quiet neighbors
Site:
- #K10, back in, gravel, had to disconnect toad
- Plenty of room to park truck
- Very large site (I normally measure using Google Maps, but the site is too new, and doesn’t appear on the satellite map)
- Full hookups:
- 50 amp power conveniently located, locked with padlock
- 60 PSI water, conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, conveniently located
- Park bench
- Great view over the valley
Internet:
- Campground Wi-Fi: none (maybe some by clubhouses, not used)
- T-Mobile: 6 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 65 ms ping
- AT&T: 6-8 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 41-64 ms ping
- Verizon: 3-8 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 175 ms ping
- I gather that the older sites down the hill have pretty much no signal
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
- Heated pool (closed); hot tub
- Rec rooms, laundry, playground, and other stuff we didn’t use
- Various outdoor games
Here’s the review Jenn wrote on Campground Reviews:
Great Base Camp for Central Arizona
We paid for the 50A premium site and it was well worth it. If all Thousand Trails had reservable upgraded sites, I would happily pay the $10/night every time. Our site was huge and had a beautiful view of the valley. I kind of wish it was a pull-in instead of a back-in so we could soak up the view through our window, though. The facilities were all kind of far from our site so we didn’t get to check them out. I do think this would be an excellent use case for e-bikes as there are a lot of hills and distances involved within the park. All the staff we interacted with were friendly and helpful. This was a great base camp for exploring the surrounding area, including several national monuments and historic towns. I only wish we had been able to stay longer so we could see more of the area and explore the local wineries. We will definitely be back! We camped at Verde Valley RV & Camping Resort in a Motorhome.
Info cover:
Map; we were in section K:
Weather:
The entrance:
We went down the hill to unhook our truck, and I drove it up to our site; here it is before the coach arrived:
Backing in:
Conveniently placed utilities:
60 PSI water:
50 amp electrical, with a combination padlock to prevent non-authorized people from taking the site:
Our site:
Us working outside in our chairs, with sun shades:
Not a bad view from our site:
Down the hill, some more RVs:
Section M on the hill behind us:
Looking downhill towards our site:
This place was so spread out, and we were only there for a short time, so I didn’t explore as much as usual. We really liked it, though, and wished we could’ve stayed longer. We’ll likely be back in the future.
Video: timelapse of coach driving from Tucson, AZ to Cottonwood, AZ
A timelapse of driving the coach 237 miles from Tucson, Arizona to Cottonwood / Verde Valley, Arizona.
Travel from Tucson to Cottonwood, AZ
After the FMCA convention, we drove 237 miles, over four hours, from Pima County fairgrounds just south of Tucson, Arizona to Verde Valley, Cottonwood, Arizona.
A longer drive than we prefer, but not too bad. We try to keep drives to about 200 miles or three hours where feasible. We like to follow the 2/2/2 rule: drive no more than 200 miles in a day, arrive by 2 PM, stop every 2 hours, and stay for at least 2 nights (so the rule really should be 2/2/2/2, but some people omit one of the middle clauses). There’s also the 3/3/3 rule, with the obvious variations, but that seems a bit much to us.
Here’s the route map, going from bottom to top:
On departure day from the convention, there was a pretty constant stream of RVs leaving the fairgrounds. Here are two Tiffins departing:
We noticed once on the road that I had neglected to remove the Magne Shade from the small side window, so we pulled off on the side of a freeway onramp to remove it:
Passing Picacho Peak again; such an interesting pointy bit:
A couple more Tiffins:
We liked the quote from the Lord of the Rings: “Not all who wander are lost”:
Since this was a long drive, we stopped at rest areas where available:
Paladin sitting between us:
Passing by downtown Phoenix:
Paladin in his dash bed, briefly; I still hope he’ll get comfortable enough with travel days to sit there while we drive:
Cacti:
Yay, gusty winds; super fun in a high-profile vehicle; fortunately not too bad:
We passed through several hills, including this 5% downgrade:
I was amused by the sign for Bumble Bee and Crown King:
Another hill:
A stop at Love’s for fuel:
And DEF:
Chips and sandwich for travel lunch:
On another hill, a runaway truck ramp; a deep gravel upward slope to stop a truck that loses its brakes:
6% grade:
Quite the view from the hill, though:
The Cottonwood exit:
There were several traffic circles:
Another nice view:
Our destination:
Foldable wagon
Occasionally we need to lug a bunch of heavy or awkward things, e.g. several packages from Amazon from a campground mail room to our coach. So a recent purchase was something to help with that: a compact foldable wagon:
It folds and collapses to a compact size, with a protective cover:
And unfolds easily, with a telescoping handle:
It doesn’t take up much room in the basement of our RV (under other stuff):
In use:
While we probably won’t use it very often, I expect it’ll be very handy when needed.