GetTheFunOut

Holbrook, Arizona.  "Where's that?" seems to be the most common response to hearing the name of this city.  "It's in Navajo County.". [glazed look, feigning knowledge not wanting to belie more ignorance] "You know, you pass through it on the way to the Petrified Forest if you're taking the west entrance."  "Oh, ok," says the person who stopped being interested between 'Holbrook' and 'Arizona.' But, look, Holbrook has the only Popeye's Chicken in Navajo County, so take note. Ok, Holbrook.  Honestly, not a place to stay the night unless you're on a long trip and this happens to be where you are at dark.  But if you find yourself passing through it's not so bad and, depending on where you're coming from in city frame-of-reference, can be a refreshing experience.

I've written before about car camping , and now that you're an expert car camper (or want to skip a step) you want to try backpacking.  I have to say, other than climbing, no outdoor activity seemed as daunting to me as backpacking.  But now that I have been once, which definitely qualifies me to write about it, it's clear that backpacking can be pretty easy and fun.  This post is to help get you over the initial hurdles that might keep you from trying; it's not to teach you how to backpack, but I will include some links at the end with helpful info. 

If there is one defining image of the Prescott landscape, it is the jutting Thumb Butte that watches over town and provides a beautiful foreground for sunsets (as well as an amazing vantage point from which to watch sunsets).  Like most of the Prescott wild, Thumb Butte is very accessible and crisscrossed with hiking and biking trails.  While this is the most obvious, and perhaps easily accessed trail, it can still provide a great workout as the main trial has over 500' in total elevation gain in its 2-mile round-trip loop.

Recently my family visited from Virginia and wanted to see more of Arizona than we've explored in the past.  Over the course of several weeks of planning they devised a route to take us through practically everything a person could want to see in Arizona.  Or, at least in Northern Arizona.  Seven of us piled into a rented Yukon and drove over 1,000 miles in the next four days.  Those miles took us through four states, multiple National Parks/Forest, the Navajo Reservation, and a Sonic drive-in.

This weekend I decided to escape to Sedona for an invigorating hike alone in the serene beauty of the red rocks.  Before leaving I jumped on AllTrails.com to pick a destination, with length and novelty being a priority.  The trail listed as "Schnebly Hill Trail to Seven Sacred Pools," coming in at a lengthy 13 miles sounded like a winner.  Because, really, who can say no to not one, not two, but SEVEN SACRED POOLS??!!  I had never been there, but luckily the AllTrails app included Google Maps coordinates so I expected to be able to navigate from point A to point B with ease. 

El Palacio, one of many indistinguishingly named Mexican restaurants in Kingman, doesn't get a lot of love on Yelp.  I mean, they have about 3.5 stars, but by Yelp terms that is a rousing "meh."  I have passed over meals here several times for that reason precisely.  Tonight, however, I screwed around downtown for long enough that I was starving and it was the closest thing nearby that I hadn't tried yet.

 

Spoiler alert. My default breakfast location in Flagstaff is the little diner just off Rt. 66 downtown... they have chicken-fried steak, how can a southern boy say no?  So on my last morning in Flag, when I was starving and needed to sop up the last little bit of the night before still sloshing around in my stomach, I was ready to head to my trusty diner.  The other option was MartAnnes Cafe...

Prescott:  Small, Scenic, Serene.

 I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "gulch" I think of things like ditches, gullies, and dry creek beds.  Apparently whoever named the Seven Mile Gulch trail is not familiar with that common ( and actual ) definition of gulch because this trail pretty much just goes up a mountain.  Also, the trail is 3.1 miles one-way.  (apparently the trail "follows" the gulch).  All sorts of confusion going on here. 

Should you find yourself driving between Prescott and Kingman with some time to spare and a wild hare to pursue, here are several diverse, quite diverse, options for your time.

Most of us probably know Kingman as that place where you turn right to go to Vegas.  Judging from the responses I've received when I have to go there for work--ranging from shock to disgust to sympathy--even more of you don't think highly of Kingman.  Admittedly, from the interstate it doesn't look like much and the out-of-business Chinese Buffet at the Vegas exit doesn't put the city's best foot forward.  But if you accidentally, fatefully even, make a left turn down Beale Street you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.