Tag Archives: Monument Valley

Retirement Income

Monument Valley to Home

Well, our last post will just describe how we got home from Monument Valley.

We drove as long as we could each day and stayed where ever we could until we got to the KOA in Little Rock Arkansas.?? If it had not been for the Firemen stopping us just before we got to the KOA at Little Rock, we would have ripped off everything on top of our RV.?? Someone had just hit a communications line and it was hanging about 10 feet off the ground and I was looking for the KOA sign and didn’t even see the line hanging there.? They saved the motor home, and I was able to drive around it by detouring through someones front yard.

That was all great, until we got to the KOA and they couldn’t sell us anything or check us in because their computers couldn’t connect to the internet and run credit cards.?? They wouldn’t take cash either and we had prepaid when we registered, but they didn’t know that because their internet was down.?? We have forgotten how to use pencil and paper as a society.

Thanks to my wonderful wife and best friend for planning and budgeting for this trip for over a year.? We had no real issues to deal with.? Everything worked out pretty much as planned.?? We also made sure the RV was freshly serviced, along with the Honda Civic tow vehicle.? We bought new batteries, and new tires for both vehicles, and updated some of the equipment in the RV for safety.

The only minor things that I can think of was:
The RV overheating in Yosemite ( but it cooled down quickly ),
No internet at Yosemite and Mt Rushmore,
The sewer water cut-off valve apparently didn’t get closed somewhere, and the dumping process got messy,
The car A/C completely went out, but only after our last tour through Monument Valley – so perfect timing,
Some NICE gentleman flagged us down at Corn Palace SD, our car was in park and was dragging the tires !!!
( this would have been catastrophic had he not caught us just as we were starting to leave the parking lot )

 

See below for a map indicating our stops and what they were.? Read previous posts to find out details about each stop.

Thanks for going on our trip with us.?? Until next time……

round-trip-map-actual-stops-colored

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Day 16-18 Monument Valley

Going away from Yosemite where we enjoyed the breath taking views and trees that were unbelievable.? But, now it’s time to move on to Monument Valley which is a good 2 day drive.

We packed up early and left out about 5:30 am.?? I’m sure our KOA neighbors were happy with us.? We drove pretty much flat and hot driving after we got out of the Yosemite / Mariposa area.?? Driving to get to the freeway was like driving through the farm lands and dirt roads which reminded me of home.

We made it to a Flying J in Kingman Arizona for the night and used the proper dry docking process of getting permission or notifying the store that we were setting up.? They don’t much like it for RV’ers to take up a commercial truckers spot in the Truck section.? We were the only RV there when we went to sleep, but found two had parked in front of us when we got up to head to Flagstaff KOA.?? Getting to Flagstaff was a breeze with not many hills and it was early enough to not be a strain on the cooling system.

We arrived at the KOA at just about opening time 8:00 am, which was too early to check in, but they put us on a no sewer site and that was fine since we are only planning to stay one night.? They provide a dumping station as you leave the campground.

We got our camper setup, and off we went for a 3 hour drive up hwy 89 through Tuba city into the Navajo nations Monument Valley.?? We found Tuba City to be a Denny’s Restaurant OASIS in the hot desert.? Monument Valley is in no way supported by the National Park system, it is strictly a Tribal supported site with magnificent and unusual rock views.? I will say, they could improve the experience by paving the road on the drive through tour.? It was very dusty, and very bumpy.?? It was so bumpy that the car bottomed out the shocks twice during the tour.?? Not going to speak about the weight in the car 😉

We found the Flagstaff KOA hosts to be very helpful and friendly, and the KOA itself was clean and quiet and shady.? Shady was a nice feature after so much desert in California, and Arizona getting to Flagstaff.? The only thing I could recommend to make it better would be better entrance, and exit.? It was like a turn style with incoming and outgoing traffic blocking each other.?? In a larger RV and towing a vehicle it was a bit difficult to get around the store into the campsites, however, once we were around the store traffic everything was perfect.

After leaving Flagstaff KOA, we drove 8 hours and pulled off at a Love’s for a dry dock tonight in Santa Rosa New Mexico.? The drive was fairly painless except the steep climb over the Rockies out of Albuquerque NM.?? It wasn’t bad, just heated up the engine and trans a little warmer than I like to.? Heading through Texas and hopefully into Oklahoma tomorrow.

Goodnight