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.

Camping in a pop up- take 2

Well, we thought we'd try the camping thing again. Some very nice friends gave us 5 Silver Dollar City passes that needed to be used by the end of September. Brent and I were determined to have a good experience with the pop up that we bought, so we went. I DID make a list this time. That seemed to work out better.

It has been raining here for 2 weeks. When Brent and I started to push the camper out of the backyard to hook it up to the car, water started draining out of the door of the camper. I said, "that doesn't look good." Brent said, "It'll be fine, don't worry about it!" So we went.


We got to Branson around 7 at night and had just enough daylight to set up our camper. As Brent rolled it up, more water came out. Once it was set up, of course, Brent couldn't deny anymore that the inside was soaked. We pulled the soaking wet cushions outside to drain and dry. Since I had made a handy list this time, I had a vinyl tablecloth. I layed it down on the wet wood on one of the bunks and put the girls' sleeping bags on top of it to keep them dry. Lucy, bedded down on the floor in her sleeping bag. The old camper got a couple rips in it when we set it up, but since I was prepared this time, I had saftey pins and pinned the rips together. Thankfully it was cool enough for bugs to stay in their beds that night.

The next day, we spent the entire day at Silver Dollar City and had a great time. Karianne was tall enough to ride anything she wanted and actually road a BIG roller coaster that I didn't have the guts to ride. I rode one big ride having forgotten that I don't like them until it was to late to get off. It was one of those big swings that swings back and forth and turns you upside down. The girls and Brent stood down on the ground waving and smiling at me- so I was told, I had my eyes tightly shut, tears streaming and shaking from head to toe trying not to vomit. After that, I stuck to the kiddie rides. :-) Amy is my girl, she had the same reaction to a kiddie ride that did the same thing on a smaller scale. She wasn't as mature as me of course, she screamed and howled and cried until they let her off.

When we got back to our campground, our cushions had dried, so we brought them all back in and had a better sleep that night.

The next morning, we woke up to rain. It was a light rain but it wouldn't stop. We were planning to leave that morning anyway, but we couldn't wait out the rain since we had a check out time. So we had to put the camper down- wet.

It's about a 4 hour drive back to our house, we expected to be home for a late lunch. We were a little more than a half hour from home outside of Claremore, OK when the camper got a flat tire on the toll road. We pulled over. Now to fix the tire, Brent had to pop up the camper to get to the spare tire that was stored under one of the seats in the camper. He popped up the camper on the side of the road and got out the tire. I was pretty amused. Felt like I needed a sign that said, "fresh watermelons for sale" or something. Then he realized he did not have anything to get the bolts off tire, and the spare was almost as bald as the one that blew out. We decided to leave our camper on the side of the road, and go into Claremore to buy the tool he needed as well as a tire. That little plan took almost 3 hours as we went from store to store, looking for all the pieces we needed. We then paid our toll to get back on the toll road, got off and paid another toll after we passed our camper going east bound, got back on-paying another toll, to get back on the westbound side of the road to get back to our camper. Brent gets out and starts to finally change our tire. Just then a trooper pulls up behind Brent to see if he needs any help. The girls we all excited to see a policeman. He watched Brent for a minute and listened to his story. Then the trooper pointed to the back of the trailer and asked, "what's wrong with the spare tire mounted on the back here?" Oh. um...

I could not stop laughing. Might have had something to do with the 44oz, Mountain Dew Brent bought for me - but I don't think so.


All in all, we did have a better trip than the maiden voyage of our camper a few weeks ago. We even brought home a special souvenir. Someone was giving away puppies at the Branson West Walmart. The poor little guy really needed to be rescued. His momma is a Westie and daddy is a ?? I don't see much Westie in him but maybe Corgi?? His momma was kept outside and he was covered in fleas and had tick scabs. He's cute though. Brent said I could have him if I let him name the puppy. Brent has named him Howie the Ozark Hillbilly from Walmart.