Boondocking at Sonoran Desert National Monument

     After leaving our friends at Saddle Mountain, we were happy to find a boondocking area only 2 hours away. 

Sonoran Desert National Monument Dispersed Camping

We saw absolutely NO big trees. We wonder where this came from and how long it's been there?

Beauty everywhere!

We were amazed to see so many sagara cacti!

     We loved that this place was right off the interstate. The road noise was audible but not annoying. However, we would not recommend this site for big rigs. Our 40 foot 5th wheel was able to squeeze into an area off the road but only because we arrived around 3. Any available space was snatched up before dark. Also, please note that there is no place to turn around on this road and it simply dead ends into sagebrush. This was another time that I was grateful for my husband's awesome backing skills because we used them!

Lake Havasu City, AZ

     Page, Arizona had a cold snap right after Christmas - most nights were below or right at freezing. Thankfully it warmed up every day so we never had to deal with pipes that were frozen solid but it was a minor annoyance to unhook the water hose every night. 

     We were thrilled to have plans to attend a full-time family hang-out in Lake Havasu City the middle of January and the warmer weather in that area made it even more appealing! After doing a little googling, I was pleasantly surprised to find an awesome, free attraction in the area: the London Bridge!

     The London Bridge was originally built in 1831 over the River Thames in London, England.The bridge was not built with a strong enough foundation to withstand the weight of automobiles and needed to be replaced. Robert Mculloch saw this as an opportunity to grow the dry and arid town he founded on the Arizona/California border and purchased the bridge for nearly $2.5 million. In 1967 it was dismantled and relocated to Arizona where it connects an island to the mainland.

     It was a smart business decision, as the town is now close to 55,000 in population! We loved walking over the bridge and imagining all the people who had done the same before.

     Each block was carefully numbered before it was brought to America by ship. Some of the numbers were still visible!

Looking over the Colorado River.

     The vintage lamps on the bridge are made from the melted down cannons of Napoleon Bonaparte’s army.

     Below the bridge is intended to resemble an English village. I was slightly disappointed but overall it was cool experience. 

The Union Jack!

     After walking nearly 2 miles around and under London Bridge, we headed to a nearby park. In addition to an amazing playground, the beach area was gorgeous! 

The combination of palm trees, water, and mountains is stunning.

We then treated ourselves to the buffet at Pizza Hut for lunch. 

      We had a great piece of BLM land to boondock on about 20 minutes out of town. Around 20 other full-time families were also parked there, many to participate in the Havasu Balloon Festival. We came to see friends and had a great time even though we came nearly a week after most others.

Little girls in my house make my happy! 

Adie and Ethan were so happy to see one another again! They are both 3, the youngest in their families and strong personalities. Fun times!

Fort Lambik. They wrote on a rock with a charred stick.

     Michael and his friends made an impressive fort out in a wash, using whatever sticks and rocks they could find. I'm not lying when I say that he was gone for 12 hours at least one day with only a few runs back for food and water. They came up with the name "Lambik" by using the first letter of all their names.

The occupants of the fort included a king, guards, doctor, and servants.

Little girls and fingernail polish! The cheap stuff peels off in about 10 minutes and they can start all over. Excellent way to keep them busy!

A drone picture of our area after most of the rigs had pulled out. 

     We had a fantastic time and Lake Havasu City is certainly on our radar of towns to possibly work in. Our next week will be spent with a few families just west of Phoenix. Eldon will drive back to Page and stay in a motel while he works his last 3 nights. After that it's Texas bound!

Pipe Spring National Monument

     While traveling from Valley of Fire State Park back to Page, Arizona, we opted to stop at this national monument for a break in our day. We were able to pull in with our rig easily but RV parking is VERY limited. As it turned out, we were the only visitors at the time and that was just fine with us. It's our belief that with Zion and Bryce so close, Pipe Spring is often overlooked by tourists but we had a great time here!

     First, we wandered about the Cultural Museum and watched a 25 minute movie on the history of the area. The museum itself is chock-full of artifacts from both the Kaibab Paiute Indians and the Mormon pioneer families who lived here in days gone by. Makayla took all the pictures inside the museum.

Household items

A butter churn!

Paiute weaving exhibit, showing how baskets were made.

The children love these mini life-like scenes

     Pipe Spring lies on the Arizona Strip, which is nearly 8,000 square miles separated from the rest of Arizona by the Colorado River (and the Grand Canyon), and has been an oasis for hundreds of years. 
     The earliest ancestral Puebloan peoples lived here in pit house villages and farmed. Between 1000 and 1250 their culture faded from the Arizona Strip, possibly due to drought. 
     The Kaibab Paiutes were the next people to inhabit the land seasonally. They alco grew maize and beans. Their basket work was amazing - some types could be used for cooking and carrying water they were so tightly woven! European diseases introduced in the 1500s, as well as Navajo and Ute slaving raids, reduced the Kaibab numbers to around 1,200 by the 1860s.
     By 1776 Missionaries and explorers slowly began working their way into the area. Drawn by the high grass and the water source, Mormon ranchers began settling the Arizona Strip in the 1860s. In 1860 James Whitmore bought a title to 160 acres around Pipe Springs and the next 8 years were filled with Navajo raids, and he was eventually killed in one.
     In 1870 Brigham Young (president Mormon church) bought Pipe Spring from Whitmore's widow and had a fort built. Winsor Castle covered the main spring and had 2 sandstone block buildings that faced a courtyard enclosed by solid wooden doors. The purpose was to have grazing rights and a water source for the "tithing herds" of the church. The remote fort prospered and bi monthly deliveries of steers, butter, and cheese were made to St.George, Utah. When the Federal Law made polygamy a felony, Pipe Spring became an excellent place to hid plural wives.

      So, our next stop was a tour of Winsor Castle. I didn't take nearly enough pictures of this amazing place but hopefully you'll get a little glimpse of it.

By 1871 Brigham had set up a telegraph office at Pipe Spring for the women to run. It could send a message 30 miles.

One side of the fort.

You can see the sandstone block walls and the huge wooden doors.

The "honeymoon suite". Many Mormon couples from Arizona traveled the "honeymoon trail" past Pipe Spring Ranch on their way to be married at the temple in St. George, Utah.

      The spring came through the wooden trough and kept this room cool year around. This is the room where the wives and children worked. All day long, they were churning butter and making cheese. It was important that they stay out of sight, in order to keep their husbands from being sent to jail for having multiple wives. With 80-100 cows that the men and boys milked twice a day, you can imagine how much butter and cheese they produced!

A covered wagon.

We hiked up the ridge behind Winsor Castle and had an awesome view of the whole place. I was thrilled that we could see the wagon trail yet!

     This is the back of Winsor Castle. You'll notice the watchtower. A child was usually on guard and if lawmen were seen approaching, he would shout a warning. Some of the women and children would scamper out the back door and hide in the hills until they were gone. What a life!

     Prairie grass used to grow chest high out here but overgrazing and farming caused the rich topsoil to blow away and sagebrush took over. This eventually led to failure for the Mormon church and the ranch was sold. For years the doors remained open to travelers of all kids. In 1923 President Harding proclaimed Pipe Spring a National Monument.

Ethan wanted a picture :).

Working hard on their Jr. Ranger books.

Miss Emily

    So once again, a not-so-popular-place was one of our favorites! Definitely do stop in if you're ever in the area.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon

    It's easy for us to get lazy and settled in when we're at a job but last week we forced ourselves to go exploring and it was so worth it! We've been to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon several times and enjoyed it except for the fact that there is to many people. Reviews of the North Rim all testified of the lack of people and that it's less commercialized so we knew if that was true, North Rim would be our favorite!

     After a 2.5 hour drive, we were in the Kaibab National Forest and found a great boondocking spot fairly quickly. When you're towing your 40 foot home, it's slightly terrifying to head down a dirt road and not know what you'll find! Usually Google earth saves us but we had absolutely zero service so we were happy that we didn't need it.

Our little clearing in the woods.

The trees were beautiful but they did block the sunlight we needed for solar!

Bison.............we were not expecting to see them here! Definitely more wild than the ones at Yellowstone.

So huge!

.......just no way to capture the vastness of it.

Emily was happy just stomping in the leaves.

The next morning it looked different due to the lighting and shadows.

Our very hyper children.

Hiking food.........

One day we walked for 4 miles through the woods.

So solemn.

And a bit chilly!

The pines were just huge!

The trail also took us along the edge for a ways.

Fallen logs made it so much more fun.

.

The only thing better than enjoying the view myself is watching our children stand in awe!

Lots of smoke from planned burns.

This was a scary little look-out. I prefered places with no rails and staying back from the edge versus this fence right on the edge!

Makayla is turning into quite the hiker!

The children found this toilet in the woods near our campsite.

Why do so many small Aspen trees have such crooked trunks? None of the big ones did so I assume they grow out of it?

It was so cold when the sun went down! I think it was in the teens some nights.

The Byler in Ethan is coming out- he is starting to really like puzzles.

      So yes, we did love the North Rim. It was stunning, like the South Rim, but I can't say the views were better, just different. We thoroughly enjoyed the lack of people. By December 1, or the first snow, whichever comes first, the road to North Rim is gated shut so we're glad we got our visit in!