Grand Canyon to Flagstaff, Arizona

RV Trip on Route 66--California to Arizona (Day 5)

Grand Canyon to Flagstaff, Arizona  October 9, 2020

Before leaving the campground inside Grand Canyon National Park, we stopped by the General Store at Market Plaza just for another look. Things are definitely more expensive here, and I don't blame them. It's not easy to transport everything up here being so far away. I would suggest to pack everything you need before heading out this way just to save a few dollars.

It's a beautiful fall morning and we will be traveling to Flagstaff, Arizona on the east. We have past by Flagstaff before but have never stopped there for anything. This time we will be taking a new route which is suppose to be a scenic drive according to the AAA map. It is also shorter than taking I-40 anyway. It turned out that this is the drive that I enjoyed most during this whole trip.

Absolutely beautiful as we drove on HWY 180 from Valle to Flagstaff towards San Francisco Peak.

(For a better view of the drive, please check out the YouTube video at the bottom of the page.)

Kendrick Park

Half way between Valle and Flagstaff, we found a wildlife park called Kenrick Park. What a great discovery! We spent about two hours here just walking around and enjoyed the site.

This expansive park is supposedly a good place to look for wildlife. Unfortunately, we did not see any. 

I would think chances of seeing wildlife would be early in the morning or at dusk and not in the middle of the day.

I can almost imagine seeing animals roaming out there in the meadow.

All sizes of pine cones covered the ground.

What beautiful creation of God!

Son decided to take the long trail around and for us, we decided to just take the shorter one.

Taking it easy.

Enjoying nature.

A pleasant walk for sure.

Looking across the other side of 180, it almost felt like we were in Switzerland.

Fall colors on the hills.

Good place to enjoy lunch and a little rest.

Walnut Canyon National Monument

After leaving Kenrick Park, we continued our drive to Flagstaff where we went straight to Walnut Canyon National Monument on the south side of I-40. I have read that the Rim Trail was opened after being closed because of the pandemic but surprisingly found out that even the Island Trail was when we got there. The Rim Trail only goes around the rim of the canyon and the Island Trail takes you down to the canyon where one can be close up to the cliff dwellings of the American Natives. The only thing is you have to be in good, healthy shape to take the one mile loop with over 700 steps of stairs roundtrip. 

Entrance to the Walnut Canyon National Monument.

It was free for us with the "America the Beautiful" senior pass.

(For some reason, no one was at the main gate, so it was free for everyone that day.)

Posted sign about the trail.

Taking these steps down was fine, the harder part is to get back up.

We could already see some of the cave dwellings half way down.

There are cliff dwellings almost all around the canyon, except most of them are unreachable.

But there are plenty that we can get close enough to.

This is a one-way loop, so it's much easier to keep a safe distance from others.

Whoa!

Part of the trail as we continued to walk down.

Just amazing!

This one had to be a mansion. Big and sturdy with many rooms.

From one side of the canyon, you can see the living quarters on the other side.

Now, all we have to do is to get back up to the top.

I must have stopped about three different times while hiking back up.

Almost there!

Old Town Flagstaff

We made it back in one piece and we still have a couple of hours before getting to our campground for the night. It was an easy drive back to old town. The only problem was finding adequate parking for the RV. Streets are narrow here and it was hard to navigate with so many people and traffic at rush hour. Fortunately, we spotted a sign that says "RV Parking" pointing to the street a block away from the Visitor Center. Huge parking lot with plenty of empty RV spaces were available there. Thank goodness!

Nicely parked.

And it was free!

Then, it was just a short pleasant walk to the Visitor Center which is inside the Flagstaff train station.

As always, we tried to not go inside public buildings as much as possible so we skipped this indoor center. I am sure there are a lot to see inside.

At least we got pictures like these.

As a train just came passing through.

Then we crossed the very busy street, which is part of Route 66, to Old Town.

It just seemed very busy in town. Possibly because it was late afternoon and many people were getting off work.

Beautiful murals on the walls.

J & H RV Park

We were running a few minutes late to check into the campground for the night because we were looking for gas station and also waiting for the pizza order when we found this pizza place across the street from the gas station. The owners, an older couple, were just about to close the office but the gentleman still lead us to our site in his golf cart. Very friendly and kind. They manage this park all by themselves, making this a very private and quaint campground for those who enjoys a serene surrounding. By the way, this campground only accepts people over 30 years old.

A nice picnic and BBQ area in the back of the park.

Clean and quiet.

We got an end site again.

"Secret Garden" where the owners buried their pets.

We just happened to bump into this pizza place while we were getting gas and it turned out to be a local favorite Flagstaff style pizza. We waited about 20 minutes to get our pie and it was totally worth it.

Even for a non-pizza person like me, I really enjoyed this. Son ordered this "Popeye..something" pizza knowing that I do not like tomato sauce. This one is white sauce with lots of spinach and meat pieces.

Something yummy to end our day!

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"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners. Christ died for us."   -- Romans 5:8