Sedona

Desert Shores is now but a distant memory. We left this beautiful resort in Southern California on Sunday with our first stop at Distant Drums RV Resort in Camp Verde, Arizona, only a gentle 5-hour drive, for two nights.

Our plan was to spend the afternoon, evening and the following day hiking in the Sedona area.

We left Indio, California later than planned. I was a bit rusty on getting the coach all set and ready to go. And, stiff. Physically stiff. I found the drive much tougher than I expected. The driving conditions were fine, clear weather, light winds, not much in the way of traffic, but I was definitely tense behind the wheel.

When we arrived into Distant Drums, I was pretty much spent. No hiking that day. In fact, I went to bed at 8pm and slept through to 6am. Very unusual for me.

Distant Drums RV Resort was a pleasant enough place to stay. The park is paved with concrete pads at each site. Well maintained, quiet and clean.

Sites are tight though. You need to be careful about where you get placed if you are coming in with a large coach. We had site 40. Fairly wide and a nice view out the front window.

The camp WiFi here is totally unusable. Campgrounds should provide a usable service or provide an honest assessment of the service: “We offer free WiFi but you really can’t use it for anything whatsoever.”

We used our hotspot for the two days we stopped here. Canadian data plans are amongst the worst and most expensive in the industrialized world. Our plan includes 15GB of data per month which is shared between Lorraine and myself. All that data for only $284 CAD per month.

We will be using a U.S. data plan when we return next year.

At just under 41 feet, our coach barely fit on the concrete pad and there was little room to squeeze our toad in beside the coach. This park was designed for much smaller rigs. Something to keep in mind if you come here with a large motorcoach.

The real attraction of this resort? Proximity to places like Sedona.

A 30 to 40 minute drive found us at the trailhead for Little Horse Trail, an easy hike out to Chicken Point Overlook.

We arrived to the trailhead before the crowds. After 9am or so, the parking lot becomes overwhelmed and you won’t find a spot for your car.

There is a unique beauty to Sedona. We have been here many times and every time we come back we are inspired by the majestic surroundings.

Although out in nature, the civilized world is never too far away. Contrails made shooting the trail challenging. The unparalleled Arizona skies were littered with them.

We spent a couple of hours hiking towards Chicken Point Overlook keeping in mind that we often diverge from the main trails that the tourists follow and that I am also taking a lot of photos along the way.

There are a constant flow of jeep tours that come out to the Chicken Point Overlook. You can make out a few of the tourists in the photo below.

Once we reached the overlook, there were 40 or 50 people from the various jeep tour companies. I was able to find a willing volunteer to snap this shot.

At least I can prove that I made it to the overlook.

The view from up here is really nice. I can see why the jeep tours make this stop.

But, if you hike on foot, away from the crowded jeep tourists, you can get a different perspective.

We spent most of the day hiking around this area. And, as the afternoon passed, we reluctantly said good-bye to Sedona.

When we left Distant Drums on the Tuesday morning, we had our longest driving day of the trip back to Canada. I am writing this entry from Ruidoso Motorcoach Ranch in New Mexico. More on the drive to New Mexico and this stunning park in our next post.

Last shot of the hike. Such an amazing day with my beautiful wife.