Category Archives: Touristy

Aztec NM

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We left Albuquerque with a specific destination and time in mind.  We had reservations to do something, but we still had one night before we could arrive.  We headed north and a bit east and were going to stay somewhere around Farmington NM.  I had heard of Farmington before but had no reason why.  One thought was just a Walmart for overnight but Roxie found another option.  A small campground in Aztec NM, east of Farmington.  The Ruins Road RV park.

The park was relatively cheap.  We took a walk around it and they said they had spots by the river.  We didn’t opt for one but found out where they were on our walk.  It appears at one time there were spots down by the Animas River and they are trying to bring the campground back.  There were, as always, many ‘permanent’ residents and it was right next to a mobile home park, with the requisite barky dogs!

But the real find to this location was just down the road.  The name of the RV park gives a hint.  Ruins.  Specifically the Aztec Ruins National Monument!  We did not know it was there until we parked.  I had never heard of it before.  It was a very nice stop when we took off the next morning.  We hooked up the trailer and parked it in their parking lot to tour the ruins.  We didn’t have too far to travel today anyway.

The name Aztec Ruins is a bit deceiving.  Aztecs were never this far north but the Spanish didn’t know that and called all Natives, Aztecs.  The name stuck.  This was one of the best ruins that we had seen.  The ceremonial location, a Kiva, at this site was excavated and recreated.  You can go inside it also:

Here are some of the multi-level structures, and you can walk through most of it:

Most doorways were pretty short though (the sign is not original):

One thing that I noticed that the Natives that constructed these buildings also built in rain gutters to channel the rainwater:

We spent a good amount of time there and enjoyed being touristy for a while.  But we then got on the road again and got to the next state:

Time to add that state sticker to the door…

Payson AZ

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The forecasts for wind showed the entire NE portion of Arizona under wind warnings.  I was thinking of heading up that way, east to New Mexico and then south to Texas.  Those forecasts changed those plans.  Instead, we headed south and a bit west to Payson.  I had heard of Payson from my mother and knew it was up in the hills AND it was outside of the wind warning zones!

We bucked an extremely strong headwind for about 50+ miles.  I was down to 45mph to avoid buffeting the trailer too much.  Gradually we started to enter the mountain areas and lose some of the wind.

We entered Payson and tried to stay at a Forest Service campground just outside of town.  It became very confusing.  I don’t know if the campground was actually open or if you could yet make reservations (yes it required reservations).  We would find a site and it would have some date on it but we could not look online to see if it was reserved.  It was not easy and we must have driven around the campground 3 times without any help from camp hosts!

I found a nice little Passport America campground south of the town that worked very well for us, Oxbow RV Estates.  It was close to town but outside the noisy area.  There were a few long-termers there but it was well maintained with terraced spaces that went up the hill.

We started off our exploring the first day we were there.  We went to the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park.  The road into the park was very steep at the end and curvy.  The had a place to drop off your trailer before the descent, luckily we didn’t have ours!.

The park revolves around a natural stone bridge that was carved out by the creek that runs under it:

They have 2 trails that descend into the canyon and a third one that was closed due to rebuilding a bridge.  We attacked one of those.  Taken slowly, these trails were very fun and manageable.  Once you got to the creek floor, there was no trail and you had to rock scramble to see anything.  Roxie did not do this but I did:

On the side of the trail, someone tried to secure a rock for some reason:

After the up and down hike, we looked at the other side of the natural bridge and the construction that was happening to the bridge.  It will be nicer to be able to take the other trail when it opens.

The next day, we decided to head the other direction (south) and visit another Tonto area.  This time it was the Tonto National Monument.  These are ruins of an old Native American settlement.  There are actually two settlements in this area that are up on the side of hills.  One is accessible via a trail from the visitors center and the other is accessible via a tour.  We went with the former.

The trail is paved all the way but it is steep.  It turned out to be a 13% grade on average.  It was well worth it.  Plants were starting to bloom in the area.  Here are a couple:

Here is a view of the settlement and the valley below (that is Roosevelt Lake – man-made):

Part of the road to and from Payson goes over part of the lake via bridge near the dam:

Taking off near the dam was a road called the Apache Trail.  It is an old route between this area and the Phoenix area.  It is primarily dirt, curvy and steep.  If we had more time I would have taken it that day but alas.

We only had 2 days in the Payson area so we were off again.  Trying to follow some weather.