We decided to make our next move on Wednesday

to the Williams, AZ area, which is about 45 miles

west of Flagstaff on I-40. Since Bonito did not have a

dump station, and we had not dumped our tanks since

Pine Grove we needed to do that. Terry had read

on the Airforums of a free dump station in Flagstaff, but when we pulled into Little America where it was supposed to be, they said there was none there ... but they thought there was one at the Conoco gas station a block away near the entrance to I-40. Sooo … over there we went. (Nothing like dragging a trailer around trying to find someplace to dump!) But sure enough there it was! Yea! It was in a bit of an awkward location, right next the diesel pump … and such that the dump station and the diesel pump could not be used at the same. When we got there, we had to wait behind a truck getting diesel … When he was done, we discovered there was another big truck on the other side of him coming to the pump from the other direction, head to head with us. We couldn’t both proceed, so Terry got out and asked the driver if he minded waiting while we did a 5 minute quick dump before he got his diesel … he was very amicable and said, “Sure…take your time.” (He was on the company clock we think.) So we did a quick dump and saluted the guy as we pulled away. It does pay to be nice.

Having accomplished that with a minimum of effort, we got back onto I-40 

less than a block away, and were on our way to Williams. We had stayed in

Williams for our very first 4CUnit rally back in 2008 over Labor Day

weekend — the rally that got us hooked on the 4CUnit. That was the trip when

we took the Grand Canyon Railway up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon,

                                too. Check out the link above for lots of pics. We stayed in

                                        a commercial park for that event, but we’d heard of a

                                           couple of public campgrounds near Williams that we                               

                                          wanted to check out. One was Kaibab Lake

                                           Campground on Kaibab Lake in the Kaibab

                                         National Forest — where we camped next. This was

                                            a fairly good-sized campground, about 4 miles north

                                           of Williams off Highway 64 that goes to the Grand Canyon, 50 miles north. We thought this would be a good place to camp if one was wanting to visit the Grand Canyon but didn’t want to stay there … and a good alternate to staying at commercial RV parks in town.

Kaibab Campground is situated on Kaibab Lake with two areas for dry camping … the lower loops have better access to the Lake and the upper loop is higher on the hillside and has more sites, some of which are double sites where folks camping together can camp in a single extra large site at a special double site rate. The roads are paved and the sites are gravel and dirt with picnic tables and fire rings. Water is available at the host sites. (There’s also ice cream, milk and other goodies available a the host site!)

There is a dump station, but they charge $7 to dump … even if you are camped there ... and more if you are not! That was a new one on us. We’d never been charged for using a dump station in a campground where we were staying ... usually that’s included. Times are changing it appears. So we were very glad we’d dumped free in Flagstaff! When we got to Kaibab Wednesday morning the lower loop was already filled. The camp host later told us that they had been completely filled every night — even mid-week. We suspect more and more folks are taking camping vacations in these stressful financial times.

We selected a back-in site that was near the entrance of the upper loop and therefore closer to the Lake than some of the other sites. We wondered why such a nice site was still open … that is until we began getting ourselves into the site! It was innocent looking enough, but tricky because there were low-hanging tree branches and large boulders at the street side and behind the trailer pad to avoid hitting. Also, the angle of entry was very sharp. All things considered we did pretty well, though it did take a while to get the Bambi where we wanted it. Fortunately a crowd did not form to watch us … thank goodness! 

It was trying to rain when we got there in the late morning,

and we had just got set up when it cut loose for a nice

steady rain for about half an hour. We were glad for

the rain because before it rained we could tell it was

going to be a very dirty camp-out. Our site had little

gravel in it, and was mostly powdery dirt. We knew

the Girls would turn into little piglets in no time.

Neither of us was looking forward to that. But the

rain solved that dilemma. It rained just enough to

wet the place down, freshen the air and settle the dust … to make it a quite pleasant place to camp for the duration of our stay. Mother Nature had come through once more!

Terry had some work to do that day and we had a good internet connection, so after taking the Girls for a walk around the campground for “orientation” he worked for a while. Terry never did get a complete feel for the place … he kept getting turned around when we took the Girls out … the only way he knew where he was, was seeing the Bambi glistening in the distance. Greg didn’t seem to have a problem in that area. Must be old age.

Thursday morning Terry did some additional work, and in the afternoon we all piled into the truck and headed into town. Williams is a nice little town with lots of interesting restaurants and antique stores. There was a vintage car event that upcoming weekend, so folks were beginning to fill the streets, and some of the pre-event activities had begun, with some of the main street lanes closed to traffic. Williams seems to always have something going on and is generally colorful. Of course, having the Grand Canyon Railway based in Williams is a huge tourist draw. We checked out a few antique stores and let the Girls sniff points of interest a few times. Then we went to find the other campgrounds we’d heard about to see what they were like. We were prepared to move later in the week if we found another campground that appealed to us.

One of the other campgrounds was Cataract Lake Campground, also in the Kaibab National Forest. Cataract Lake was not very appealing … a small campground with lots of mud holes and difficult campsites to get into with a

                          trailer … and better suited for tenting. It seemed like a

                                campground that been forgotten in terms of maintenance.

                                   There were a couple of larger sites that were occupied by

                                    what looked like long term campers … kinda junked up,

                                    and the remaining sites were very unlevel and would be

                                    difficult to get into with any sort of rig. It was pretty

                                   disappointing. It was cheaper there … and now we know

                                     why. There was also a county-run park nearby that

                                        looked like it would have been very nice campground, but it was closed down and the gae locked — a victim of these economic times. Too bad, because from outside it looked like it had been quite inviting. We went back to the Kaibab Lake and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon, and knowing we were in the best place around, we decided to stay put through the weekend.

Friday we took it easy and didn’t move very fast. Terry needed to send a CD of

image files to Texas for a client so we went into town again in the afternoon.

We couldn’t locate a FedEx drop in Williams, so we went to the Post Office and sent it USPS Priority. While we were there, we made another sweep of

town … more antique cars had arrived and judging from the increased activity,

the weekend had officially begun. We both had a taste for pizza, so we stopped

by a Pizza Hut and got a pizza … it was quite good and filled all those little

corners that need filling. It was a pleasant day of chores and doing not much

of anything else.

Saturday morning it rained lightly again and we sat under the awning

and enjoyed the fresh air and cool breeze. That afternoon we took a

walk down to the Lake with the Girls and hiked as far as we could

along the shore past the campground where the lake narrowed.

There was an osprey nest high in a dead tree on the other side of the

Lake and we got to see osprey flying about in and out of the nest

… it was pretty neat to see. Osprey have a penchant for nesting in high dead trees apparently. We read somewhere that in areas where they are found the forest service has trouble with them trying to nest on power poles and each year some of these beautiful birds are lost to electrocution. It’s a hard thing to discourage them, since it’s in the genes.

By the time we finished our walk by the Lake the sun was beginning to set … there’s something about lakes and sunset that is very appealing … great colors and displays of sunlight. We got back to the campsite just in time to jump in the truck and drive down to the lower loop to go down by the water to take in sunset from that perspective … it was very pretty.

We planned to leave the next day, Sunday, so we did much of the packing and preparation that evening … so that we could have a more leisurely departure Sunday morning.

We really enjoyed the freedom that the generator gave us on this trip. We had never camped for so long without hookups of any kind, and we could understand why so many folks prefer dry camping (no hookups) and boondocking (dispersed camping, even more off the grid, rather than actual campgrounds). The new generator had served us well and we were pleased with its performance. We put enough hours on it that we would do an oil change when we got home and put it into storage for the next trip where we would  need it.

Sunday we got up, finished our packing and hit the road for home. It took us about 6 hours to get to Tucson … about 315 miles. We’d been out 11 nights

and had sampled three campgrounds and checked out several others along the way. It was a successful trip, indeed! Can’t wait to do it again! We try to

keep expanding our horizons to find new paces to visit, while hitting some favorite places along the way. This trip we stayed in an old favorite, Pine Grove, and tested the waters in two new places, Bonito and Kaibab Lake ...

both were well worth it and we’ll no doubt be back to them some day.

Click on the Slide Show icon below to see pics of Kaibab Lake and the trip home ... or click on “Pine Grove” or “Sunset Crater” to revisit those legs.

At the end of the photo section below click on “Other Trips” to visit previous adventures. We hope you’ve enjoyed your visit and we hope you come back often!

Happy Trails!