It’d been on our list of places to visit for several years. We drove close to the Grand Canyon a few times, but never felt like we had time to actually go in and visit. Finally, when we headed to Utah to workamp, we gave ourselves a few extra days to stop and visit the Grand Canyon.

We always think we’re going to stop at RV parks for the night, but then we look at the price and decide boondocking is totally doable for another night. LOL! We didn’t head out of Yuma until about 5:30pm. After having spent most of the day loading everything up to move, we found ourselves exhausted by about 8:00pm before we even made it to Phoenix. So we found a recreational area to pull off the road and parked next to a sign that said “No camping without special use permit”. No big deal, right? We’re just parking our house here. We’re not camping. I don’t know, I hate breaking rules and I hate it even more when I can’t decide if we’re doing things according to the rules or not. But we were extremely tired and there was no where else to get off the highway so we went with it.

The next day I enjoyed a long awaited trip to Trader Joe’s and a delightful snickerdoodle latte from Dutch Brothers!! And then as we drove off towards the mountains sipping good coffee I thought, “I’m not sure my day could get any better!” Once we got outside of the Phoenix area, the scenery just kept getting better and better.

I had been planning to share tidbits from the trip on my IG stories, but just outside of Flagstaff, AZ I lost data service on my phone due to roaming. So I’m sharing it now, with you. Jonathan had looked up an RV Park he was considering staying at in Cameron, AZ. There was also a trading post there he wanted to check out. I was SO impressed with this souvenir shop! They had some great items in there. Jonathan spoiled me with a matching bear necklace and bracelet set as well as a necklace pendent that read “Brave”.

We decided not to stay at the RV Park and drove on to a boondocking site I found on the Campendium app which was within 5 miles of the park entrance. We used our money to pay the $35 entry fee to the national park instead. I think we ended up with a much more enjoyable night on the road as our site was private and tucked off the highway. Kitty Macchiato was able to run around and explore freely, we built a nice camp fire, and we were able to unhitch and leave the cargo trailer behind for our day trip to tour the Grand Canyon the next day.

I’m not sure what I expected from the Grand Canyon, but I have to agree with Jonathan…it would be better to take a day hike or some other form of adventure down into the canyon. Just driving around and looking at it from the view points is impressive, and I’m really glad we did it, but I still don’t feel like I’ve really experienced the Grand Canyon. But for the short amount of time that we had, we both enjoyed the views. We entered the park through the east entrance, which is the least popular from what I understand. My favorite view point we stoped at was Grandview Point. There’s a hiking trail there which I wish we had time to explore, but another time. The views from here were the best in both directions!

We spent about 5 hours exploring the park and then headed back to our boondocking site to pick up our cargo trailer. Yes, we were nervous about people possibly bothering our trailer while we were away. But it was perfectly untouched when we got back and it was really nice to be able to leave it behind. There were several parking areas that were not big enough for our full load. This has also been one of the reasons in the past that we don’t stop and tour much while we’re making a trip.

With the Grand Canyon behind us, we set out towards Utah and turned our minds to our new work opportunity at the Ranch. We agreed that it would be important to stay in an RV Park that night, before arriving at the ranch, to give us a chance to clean up the camper (and ourselves) before showing up at our new position. I also wanted to use the wifi to catch up on some work before getting distracted by settling in at the Ranch.

My favorite things from this trip include:

• Trader Joe’s and Dutch Brothers
• Cameron Trading Post
• Having a campfire
• Grandview Point
• The Cougar Crossing sign