Antelope Canyon, Arizona

Antelope Canyon has been on my bucket list ever since I saw the famous Peter Lik photographs. The location of the canyon was a perfect stopping for us as we made our way back to the Phoenix valley. There are three canyons that offer tours in the area, but you need to buy tickets well in advance due to the limits the Indians put on the number of visitors allowed per day. We had tickets to both the lower and upper canyons. Each tour is about an hour long and they move you through the canyon in your tour groups. The tour guides are very helpful in how to take the best photos at the various stops. We took literally hundreds of pictures. The shafts of light you see in many of the famous paintings happen during the summer months, so we are anxious to get back to the area to see them. After the disappointments of Monument Valley, it was great to end our year long adventure with such an amazing highlight as Antelope Canyon. Put this one on your list. Time to start planning for 2020...

Page Lake Powell Campround, Page, Arizona

Great location in Page to visit Antelope Canyon. The park is mostly back in sites for the RVs with some tent sites and covered wagons that you can rent. The park had decent showers, bathrooms and laundry along with a small fitness room. The park does not offer wifi, but has cable hook ups. The price was reasonable and we will stay here again when returning to the area. We give this parka 4 out 5.

Monument Valley, Arizona

We have had many friends recommend Monument Valley as something that we must see during our RV travels, so we put it on the schedule and were excited to see the sites. When you visit the area, you can see the most famous formations right from the main road. The area around the formations are Indian reservation land, so they charge a hefty fee to get into the visitor center and to do a self driving tour on the extremely bad dirt road. Don't plan to drive yourself on the road unless you have a true off road vehicle with high clearance. We set the Jeep at the highest clearance on the adjustable suspension and still scrapped in many locations. Even if the road was better, the view of the formations is much better from the main highway. We would recommend saving the time and money by not going onto the reservation area. One of the funny touristy things in the area is to take a picture on the road where they filmed one of the scenes from Forrest Gump. Traffic is still moving through this area at speed, so you need to be on your toes when jumping out into the middle of the road for your picture.

Monument Valley KOA, Monument Valley, Utah

The KOA is located right off US 163 giving great views of the formations that make Monument Valley famous. Unfortunately the KOA is on the sparse side as far as amenities. The bathrooms were typical of a state park campground. The wifi was non-existent even during the off hours which is inconvenient given that the park is also in a cell coverage dead zone. Given the poor amenities and the relatively high nightly rate, we will look for other options when visiting this area. We give this park a 2 out of 5.

Canyonlands and Arches National Parks

Arches/Canyonlands National Parks

We're trying to kill some time before we get back to Mesa.  Who wants to be in a RV in Mesa, AZ in September when it's still 95+?  Not us!  We couldn't get into any RV parks for the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque so we decided to head back to this area.  We have been in both parks before but we mainly wanted to come back to do a hike in Canyonlands that we missed the first time.

The first day we decided to skip the hike and just sight see from the car since there was a lot of wind.  We went to Dead Horse Point State Park which was beautiful and full of scenery.  The legend of the name is sad because the legend goes that the cowboys rounded up a bunch of horses back in the day, took the horses they deemed the best and left the rest trapped in the corral at a point that the horses couldn't escape and were left to die.  :(   I prefer to believe that it's just a legend and didn't really happen.  Despite the name, the views were phenomenal.  After that park we went back to Arches because it is such a cool park.  The arches and the rock formations just boggle the mind.

The next day we headed out for our hike.  It ended up being a gorgeous hike mostly through a canyon wash to an arch.  So glad we went though!  The canyon we walked through made me think of sets of Star Wars.  I could just see the characters in the various "towns"and cantinas every time I looked up at the canyon walls.  So amazing!  On to the next national park

Moab KOA, Moab, Utah

This is a large KOA conveniently located right off the main highway, US-191. The sites and roads in the park are gravel with most of the sites being pull through. There are a large number of tent and cabin sites around the edges of the park. The park has a nice pool area that was popular during our stay, clean bathrooms and showers and an off leash dog run area for our four legged friends. The wifi only worked occasionally. As with most KOA parks, the price is a little higher than it should be, but you get the peace of mind of knowing that the campground will almost always be in good shape. We give this campground a 3 out of 5 due to the price being on the high side for what you get.