Camping in Prescott

Karianne has been begging to go camping for months now. So we finally got out the old pop up camper which hasn't been "popped up" in 2 years and got it ready to go.  We went to Prescott, AZ which is only about an hour and a half from us and we chose it because it was the least likely to rain there as well as having cooler temps than Phoenix right now. It doesn't generally rain in AZ but this is the rainy season, or Monsoon Season as it's called, and if it's going to rain, there's a better chance of raining now. We packed up and took off and as soon as we got on the highway we saw a dark sky in the distance. Within 15 minutes it was raining on us and it continued to rain on us for the next 2 days. Since rain in AZ means you may get one one hundreth of an inch in a good shower, it wasn't so bad. We had to get the rain off that was puddling on top of our camper just twice. We had a great camping spot that was right next to some great rock climbing that the kids had a blast playing on. There were lots of hiking trails from our camp site. Hiking is what we love best so we were happy. We hiked a lot, when it wasn't raining. There was a really neat lake near our campground that we hiked to on our last day. It was a lake right in the midst of lots of big BIG rocks that were fun to climb all over. It reminded me of the old TV show, "The Land of the Lost." It looked so prehistoric. Lots of fun.

Lucy and I had fun poking crayfish. When we realized the other girls were terrified, we had more fun!

Our fearless leader.

Prescott is the old capitol when Arizona was still a territory. We walked around the historic downtown while it was raining and saw some neat old shops. It reminded me of the town I was born in in Michigan, a very old downtown surrounded by old victorians and other old houses over 100yrs old. There's a street called "Whiskey Row" that was nothing but bars and saloons back in the mining days at the turn of the century. The whole strip burned down in a fire in 1907 and within days the saloons were being rebuilt and many of those still stand today. Really neat buildings, they aren't all bars now though, the girls had some home made taffy in a candy shop there, and they got some western souvenirs in another shop.

Here's a man offering my girls some candy. Hmmm

Evening consert gearing up in front of the courthouse. I love how people just hang out downtown.

The guy riding this bike has a t shirt that says, "Postal for Jesus".

 Anyway, that was our first trip to Prescott. I read that it is one of the top 5 places to retire in America, I can see why, I'd love to retire there, nice weather, nice views; I love the old houses and the trails. Our old camper needed a few more patches, it looks like some sort of gypsy wagon on the inside. But overall, less catastophies than the last time that we pulled out the old camper; or even the time before that.