Leaving Las Vegas!

Never saw that movie...but it seemed a good title.

We left Vegas via the new REALLY high bridge over the Hoover dam, down into Arizona and stopped just outside of Flagstaff.  Camp Navajo is an old Army Depot.  Not sure what they do there now...some national guard and reserves I think.  Wasn't much activity when we were there.

As I mentioned before, we like to try to stay in Military Fam Camps and we are finding some we normally wouldn't run across.  Camp Navajo is one of them.  When we were in Phoenix last year and looking for somewhere to stay around Flagstaff, we found this little place.  Unfortunately it was closed in the Spring as they had a tornado come through in the Fall.  We called ahead to make sure they had some sites available.  The very nice camp host told us there were 4 open.  This is one of those first come first serve famcamps.

We arrived around 1:00 and there were still 4 spots available.  We set up in one on the end...our preference.  Wooded area out the back and side windows...very nice, AND very much cooler than Las Vegas!

See that flag pole?  Our last neighbors at Nellis had one and they gave Dave the instructions to make one.  Works really well AND now I'm trying to talk him into a double one to hang twirlies and wind chimes on.  I'll let you know if that ever happens. :)

We stayed at Camp Navajo for 3 days.  Our second day we drove down 89A to Sedona.  What a beautiful drive!

Yes, that's the road down there.  Can't quite see the switchback, but there were quite a few of them.

The drive down was beautiful, we made a couple of stops to get out and look at the river that runs through the canyon and just to look around.  One stop we made was at the national forest info center.  The very nice host there told us we should have lunch at the Sedona Airport and go see the Church in the Rock.  We also drove a loop through the redrock canyon.   Lunch was good and we watched small planes come and go.  They also had helicopter rides leaving from next to the restaurant.

Sedona Airport

The Church in the Rock is reached by driving through a residential area and directly across from it was this HUGE house with a beautiful fountain in their yard.

And look at that view!!

And here's me in the church:

Nope.  No lightening strike!

Here is the view from the outside.  It IS an architectural wonder.

From there we headed back up to Camp Navajo and just hung out until we left the next day.

BREAK**(October 10th....OMG we are SOOOOO tired!  More in next post)

We headed out about 10 am for our too long drive (4 hours) to Acoma, NM.  It is just East of Grants, NM and about 55 miles from Albuquerque.  No sightseeing reason to stop there, we just wanted to be able to reach Kirtland AFB Famcamp on Monday.  There is a truck stop and a casino here and the price was right so we stayed there Fri, Sat and Sun night.  We did find somewhere to visit. The Acoma Sky City Pueblo on top of a Mesa. It is the oldest inhabited Pueblo in the US as the Acoma people have lived there since 1150 AD.  It was an interesting tour.  You arrive at the Museum at the foot of the Mesa and then they bus you up for the tour.  No camera's are allowed unless you pay an extra fee to take pictures.  We knew this before we left, so didn't even bring the camera along.  Sorry no pictures.  

We did take advantage of the free coupon for breakfast from the Sky City casino, played the $15 in free slot play and that was it for the casino.

Now, back to the staging for Kirtland AFB Famcamp.  It is a first come, first serve, no reservations camp.  You can only stay 14 days at a time and we wanted to be able to stay the entire time we were working the balloon fiesta.  We wanted to leave Sky City so that we would be at the Famcamp right about 11 am in order to be first in line for an open space....check out time is at 11 there.  

We arrived about 1130, noticing on our way in there were at least 4 empty spaces.  When I went in the office I was told there were none available and 3 already on the waiting list.  Apparently a military affiliated RV group had "reserved" 25 spaces for the balloon fiesta.  WHAT?!  We thought there was a NO reservation policy.  Well there is a no reservation policy, unless you know the General on post, your the leader of a military affiliated RV group AND you pay an extra fee to the post MWR fund!  What a crock of shit!  Dave was extremely pissed, called the MWR office and complained and then filed an IG complaint.  NO reservations means NO reservations.  No retiree should have any preference over another. Can you believe he was told that if he joined the group, he could have had a spot...OK, Dave even MORE pissed.

We were told we could stay in their dry camp and see if enough spots opened up the next day to move to a hookup site.   Had to be at the office at 9 am.  Well, with the dogs and having to do running around that day, we decided we needed at least electric, so we stayed in an RV park west of town.  

This is actually a nice looking famcamp and the host is very nice, but what with the reservation screw up, 1 of the 3 washers and 2 of the 4 dryers broke and $1.50 to wash, it could use some work.  Anyway, we paid for 14 nights to cover the fiesta and a day extra to rest up, clean up and get ready to go.

Ok, enough for now.  Next post will be Balloon Fiesta and catch us up to present day.

SHOUTOUT:  To Alice and Frank....it's so nice to meet new friends on the road!  Safe travels.