Inching North --- Apr 23, 2015

Happy 10th Month Anniversary to me...and 3rd Month Anniversary to Nikko, the RV wonder dog! A lot of miles have come and gone over the past 10 months....about 8,000, actually.  Doesn't seem possible until I look back at all my photos.  There have been 12,800 page views so far!

Well, we have inched north only about 28 miles from our last site down by Camp Verde in the Coconino National Forest.  But, we're still in the Coconino NF - I would say we're in Rimrock, AZ. The weather is absolutely perfect!  Sunny / 70's!  We will be here for 14 days.

So....I had researched this area but had only found a short blurb on dispersed campsites around here. It said there were a few sites about a mile from I-17 on Rt 179...and some about 3 miles.  We turn onto 179 and sure enough, there was ONE site about a mile in....no one there...just a spot on a little incline...and you could see the highway from there.  It looked okay, but I thought why not go to the ones further in?  Farther away from the interstate and might not be many cars going by.  We're on a narrow paved road, so it was easy to drive.  At 3 miles....nothing! Except the road curves and turns into dirt/gravel.  And we hadn't passed by any other sites that I could see.  Hmmmmmmm....not knowing what the dirt road held in store for us, I decided  - OK, we'll just turn around and take that first spot....no big deal.  ACK!!! A big Class A (like a bus) and it's toad (tow vehicle) were in the spot!!  Where did they come from so fast??

So we turn around again....thinking well, maybe I just missed seeing some sites.   Nooooo....I didn't. We don't have much choice but to go down the dirt road now.  Well, it's in good shape, thank goodness.  About 1/3 mile, I guess, that looks like a campsite!  Yay!  I pull into kind of a large area and sure enough there's a fire ring to one side.  That means it's OK to camp there.  I back in and get level.

No freeway view from here!  This is the view right from our door!

Those Class A people don't know what they're missing!  Ha Ha!  This is perfect!  How lucky to be able to spend our mutual anniversaries here!

Here are a few more landscape views with RV perspective --

Pretty nice, huh?!  As you can see, a mere 28 miles makes a difference in the terrain.  We're seeing a tinge of "red rock" country now. From this view, you are looking a bit northeast.

There is a trail head here at this site, so I will expect a few hikers.  (Nikko will love that!  NOT!) The thing is, the "trail" is just a little walk.  Apparently, it used to go up into the mountains, but for preservation's sake, they have stopped allowing hiking through there.  It is barracaded by a barbed fence.  People new to this trail will be disappointed.  We walked up the lane early the first morning....Tuesday.  Then spent the rest of the day settling in.

It didn't offer much in the way of unusual interest, but it's hard not to be taken in by just being able to have this area to ourselves!  Who gets tired of mountain views?  :-)  Nikko can be off leash around here. There are cactus, but mostly just up on the hillsides.  This little lane will be nice to just get out and take a leisurely stroll while we are here.

Wednesday morning we took a walk up the road on past our site....just to see what was around.  Like did we get the best site??  It looks like we did, because we walked pretty far and never saw another campsite!

These homes have a beautiful view!

While it is beautiful here, there aren't a lot of different scenery views.  But hopefully I will give you enough with this and upcoming posts to get a feel for the area.  (I have reduced the file size of most of these photos to make uploading faster -- to reduce data usage and there are only a few Verizon bars here.)

Since we are facing primarily east toward the mountains, the sunset will be behind us....and there's not a lot to write home about the western view....at least from right here at the campsite, but you can be sure if there are some pretty colors/clouds, I'll be taking photos anyway!

However, as I've mentioned before as a photo hint, very often some of the best shots are taken to the east during a sunset.  That's what we will probably have here most of the time....like these shots --

It's is really quiet and peaceful here.  We're set back just a little from the road, but very few cars come by.  WAY less than at our last site.  We're tucked in between some trees, but not enough to obstruct our view, and set apart a little from any cars that might park in our "driveway" to go up that trail. (two chairs...makes anyone who might wonder about there only being one person here....but they'd have to get past Nikko first, anyway!)

I'll stop here for now.  Hopefully this gives you an idea about where we will spend our time until May 4th.  It's another great spot!  And......we'll be eating well here, too!  Teryiaki/sesame salmon....soooo good!

Today's comings and goings will have to wait....it was an interesting one!  Stay tuned!

Have a great weekend and thank you for shopping Amazon via my blog!  You pay the same and I make a small commission to help pay to publish the blog!