Small Home – Big Yard

Welcome to Arizona!

In the past we’ve talked about the rough, crumbling roads in Colorado and Texas.  Today we learned that Arizona highways (at least I-40 & I-17) are even worse.  After 2 nights parked within sight of I-40, we can vouch for the extremely heavy truck traffic on the route between Albuquerque & Flagstaff.  In the 10 mile corridor that we could see from the campground, there always seemed to be at least 40 or 50 trucks traveling east and west.  Obviously all of this heavy traffic is causing our already old, crumbling infrastructure to fail even faster.  Huge pot holes (some poorly patched, some just gaping holes) are encountered at nearly every bridge crossing and turn in the road.  Sometimes long stretches of washboard concrete patches shake everything inside the truck, and undoubtedly rearrange things inside the RV too.

We last visited Camp Verde in mid-February 2018 when we stayed at Rancho Verde RV Park and Dead Horse Ranch State Park.  This time we’re parked at a relatively new park (Aug’2019), Verde Ranch RV Resort.  The new facilities at Verde Ranch are beautiful – from the manicured doggie “rest-areas” to the modern club house, outdoor pool and hot tubs – and even the laundry rooms.  Set along the Verde River at the junction of I-17 and AZ 260, it’s very convenient to Camp Verde, Sedona and Cottonwood.  Even Prescott is less than an hour away.  Some of the best river-side sites suffer from some highway noise, but the majority of the sites are far enough away, or behind a noise blocking hill.  The resort offers premium & standard pull-throughs, deluxe end/back-ins and standard back-in sites and even covered sites for use in the hot Arizona summer.  Along the river are 3 pickle ball courts as well as a couple shuffle board courts and a children’s play area.  With leaves, this lush green river valley will be a beautiful backdrop to the resort.

We’re parked in site 127, a standard pull-through site on the far North end of the property.  Sites provide 20/30/50 Amp electrical, water, sewer and cable TV.  Most of the sites are level gravel, but a few are still dirt, awaiting the daily loads of gravel that arrive at the resort. In early February, temperatures during our 4 night visit ranged from downright chilly 25 (snow on the higher peaks around town) to fairly pleasant 65.

After a fun evening out in Prescott (thanks Janice & Steve) and a quick exploration of the local brewery, we’re once again headed south to Lake Pleasant Regional Park & Campground – just on the northwest corner of the Phoenix metro area.  More from Lake Pleasant…