Living on the road presents its own unique set of challenges. One of them being how to order what you need from Amazon! Back home we had Amazon packages arrive on our doorstep at least once per week, but on the road it takes a bit more planning. While we love Walmart for groceries, it doesn’t always have the brands or specific things you may want while on the road. The good news is Amazon now offers locker pickup, so as long as you are near a decent sized city they likely have an Amazon locker you can order to for convenient pickup (Whole Foods for example). Knowing we would be near Phoenix we placed our order two days prior to arrival and picked it up at a locker on our drive to Lost Dutchman State Park.
Located in the Superstition Mountains 30 minutes outside of Phoenix, Lost Dutchman State Park offers incredibly scenic desert camping with gorgeous views of the mountains. The landscape is covered in several different types of cactus such as prickly pear, giant saguaro and cholla to name a few. If you visit, be careful as the cholla in particular seem to jump out at you! Max found out the hard way when we were hiking as a cholla got stuck to the rubber sole of his hiking boot and after taking a step forward it got stuck to his other leg. They are so prickly that it took us a bit to get it out of his leg, but we finally were able to rip it free with the help of a rock.
Phoenix is where we had our first visitor of the trip – my little sister Kalie! She had never been to Arizona before, so we wanted to give her a sampling of the “Best of Arizona” in one week’s time. Our itinerary was to spend two nights at Lost Dutchman State Park, two nights in Sedona and three nights at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Kalie LOVES to hike so we made sure to pack our itinerary with lots of great hiking trails.
The first hike we did with Kalie was Flatiron via Siphon Draw Trail in Lost Dutchman State Park. It’s a challenging 6.2 mile hike with an elevation gain of 2,933 feet. Halfway up the mountain it feels more like rock climbing than hiking as you have to scramble on all fours. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but Kalie was more than up for the challenge as she lead the three of us almost the whole way! At the top, the views were incredible and we were able to spot our bright red RV at our campsite a few miles away.
After making it safely down the mountain, we washed up, grilled hamburgers and had a few brewskies around a relaxing bonfire. Then it was time to hit the hay as we wanted to get an early start on driving to Sedona and finding the perfect dry camping spot for the second stop on our itinerary.
