Yesterday, Donna and I left our dry camping area around 11:30am to hike and check out camping areas. We wanted to stay in the area until Thursday, then move up to Flagstaff for a week. Donna needs to fly to New York for a media tour on Monday morning and return on Tuesday night. She’ll fly out of Flagstaff.

We walked down to the site we saw the night before. An ATV tour guide company unloaded four ATVs at the site. We walked on down the road. A half mile in, we found a spur road on the left and walked down it. There was a great looking site a few hundred yards down the road, but someone was already there. We continued on and found a few more open spots, but they weren’t very level or weren’t large enough for our rig.

We finally found a site that was fairly level and large. It was near a radio-controlled (RC) airplane field. A guy driving a pickup truck told us there would be a large RC meet at the field that weekend. We wouldn’t stay that long, but there would probably be activity at the field leading up to the big meet.

We walked back up the road. We had walked downhill to the site and when we climbed back up the hill, we could see what looked like a site off to our left that we could access from the main road. We decided to cross a field and go directly to the site, rather than walk all the way back to the main road.

As we got closer, we saw that it wasn’t a site at all, it was just a wide junction of another spur road off the main road. We walked down to the spur road and continued our search. We found an ideal site. It was a flat, round clearing with a tree in the center. It was large enough for us to pull into and circle around the tree to set up. We thought we were set.

We walked back up to the main road. That’s where our plan was dashed. There was a sign there that said the area was closed. No camping, no motorized vehicles. Something to do with watershed reclamation.

We walked a little further down the main road. We came to a point where the road dropped into a gulch. We couldn’t see any likely areas down there, so we turned back. We stopped and looked at the first site with the ATVs again. Donna decided to take my cell phone and hike back to the RC field and see how the Verizon coverage was. We didn’t think to do this the first time we were there. I went back to our coach with her phone.

When she came back, she said she wanted to cross highway 89A and look at a place where we saw other rigs camped. When she came back she said it was a large, flat graveled area with toilets at a trailhead. There were five rigs there including two with horse trailers. She said there was room for one more rig.

We packed up and pulled the slides in, still undecided about which site to move to. We thought we could cross the highway and pull into the site and see if we liked the set-up. If not, we could return to the site with the ATVs.

Right about then, a Dodge Ram pickup pulled into our site. It was Mark and Emily Fagan (roadslesstraveled.us). We stepped outside and greeted them. They were in the area riding their mountain bikes and knew where we were camped. We stood outside and chatted. It’s always great to run into friends on the road.

Mark told me about a couple of other boondocking sites in the area. One was about half a mile away. Then he told me about Beaverhead Flats Road. If we boondocked there, we would be close to the town of Oak Creek. We could also go to Sedona from there. Our current location has us isolated. Highway 89A into Sedona would be a seven-mile run up a steep grade with a 65mph speed limit. I thought that we would be pushing the scooter too hard to ride two up under those conditions.

I told Donna I thought we should go to Beaverhead Flats Road. I wanted to be able to go into town and not be so isolated. Later, Donna told me she felt a little uneasy about ditching our plan and taking off into the unknown again. But, she didn’t say anything at the time. By the time we got rolling, it was after 3pm.

We drove back down 89A about five miles to the Cornville exit. We followed the Cornville road for several miles before we found Beaverhead Flats Road. Beaverhead Flats Road took us toward AZ179. Mark mentioned a pullout at a scenic overlook. We thought we could stop there and have a look around. When we reached the overlook, about six miles up the road, I didn’t pull in.

I pulled over onto a wide shoulder area. I didn’t pull into the scenic overlook because the entrance was a narrow road that disappeared around a hill. Without knowing the layout, I could end up in a parking lot too small for me to turn around in. We had another issue to contend with as well.

I haven’t driven this coach enough to know how accurate the fuel gauge is. Our gauge was showing less than half a tank of fuel. This is plenty of fuel to drive for two hundred miles or more, but the generator will not run once the tank is about a quarter full. This is a safety feature to keep from running out of fuel while dry camped in a remote area. The last quarter tank is for the engine only. All motorhomes running generators off the main gasoline or diesel fuel tank are set up this way, at least as far as I know.

The Beaverhead Flats Road ended one mile further on at a stop sign at the junction with AZ179. We turned left and drove toward Oak Creek. I wanted fuel before we dry camped anywhere. We saw a ranger station and wanted to stop for more information on the area. Once again, we were thwarted by a small parking area.

We hit a roundabout at the edge of town and turned back. We didn’t know what to do next. It seems that we’re not very good at picking out boondocking spots on the fly. It’s difficult if you don’t know the area and don’t know what you may be driving into. On Beaverhead Flats Road and on AZ179 there aren’t many places where a big rig can pull over and have a look around.

We pulled over just before AZ179 met I-17 to discuss our next move. We looked at our RV park guide and used the Points of Interest (POI) feature on the GPS. We threw out our dry camp plan and drove to the Distant Drums RV park near Camp Verde. Donna has work to do and we needed to settle in somewhere for a few days.  It was after 5pm by the time we were parked in our site. Thursday we’ll head up to Flagstaff.

We grilled bacon wrapped petite filets with corn on the cob and grilled tomato for dinner.

Bacon wrapped petite filet

Today, I’ll make reservations for us at a campground in Flagstaff.