We departed from Valle’s RV Park at 9:30AM MDT and headed Southwest on US-163 towards Monument Valley. We stopped for photos in a couple of places. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get Beth to grow a beard and relive the scene from Forrest Gump.
We continued on to Page, AZ where we and MANY other campers stopped for supplies at the local Walmart. Most of them were headed off to nearby Lake Powell. We also fueled up at the local Maverik Station. Maverik’s are nice because a lot of them have RV Dumpstations and potable water for refilling the camper’s fresh water tanks.
After our stop in Page, AZ, we continued down US-89 for a few miles and picked up US-89A heading towards the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Along US-89 we stopped at Antelope Pass Vista overlooking US-89A and the hole in the valley floor containing the Colorado River. The pictures don’t do justice to how far below the valley floor is.
Following Antelope Pass Vista, we headed North on US-89A and crossed the Colorado River at the Historic Navajo Bridge. We had originally planned to stop there and walk back across the pedestrian bridge, but we were down to roughly 3,500′ in Arizona elevation and the temperature was 98 degrees. We chose to just remember what we saw.
Following the bridge we climbed up US-89A to nearly 8,000′ in elevation. We stopped at a scenic overlook to look back across the massive valley and US-89A from the House Rock Valley Overlook.
By the time we were certain our new RV was going to be available to make this trip, it was too late to get a campsite in the Grand Canyon North Rim Campground, but we were able to get into the Demotte National Forest Service (NFS) Campground 18 miles away. Being a NFS campground, it is dry camping (no power, water, or sewer hookups), but we are at 8,773′ in elevation (289 miles) and won’t need any air conditioning. The temperature when we arrived at 3:00PM MDT was 70 degrees. The overnight low is expected to be around 52 degrees. It’s was not easy to level our camper in this site, but we were eventually able to get close by placing two plastic blocks under our front tires (otherwise they would have been off the ground). We are surrounded by quite a few trees, but our roof mounted Starlink antenna has managed to find enough satellites to stream the Ray’s game. We have Zero cell phone service, but were able to place test calls with each other using Wi-Fi calling (via Starlink).
The day after arrival we drove the remaining 18 miles to the North Rim Visitor Center. The beauty of the North Rim is that it was not crowded at all. We parked at the first spot we saw that was big enough for the RV. It turns out we could have parked much closer, but we didn’t want to take any chances. Our spot was well shaded and the camper was nice and cool when we returned. Phoebe was still napping comfortably.
| Device | Download Mbps | Upload Mbps |
|---|---|---|
| Campground Wi-Fi | n/a | n/a |
| Starlink | 184 | 17 |
| AT&T Hotspot | n/a | n/a |
| US Mobile – Brian (AT&T) | n/a | n/a |
| US Mobile – Beth (AT&T) | n/a | n/a |
| TV | Quality |
|---|---|
| Antenna | No Channels |
| Campground Cable | n/a |
| DISH Satellite | n/a |