When we left our site at Petrified Forest National Park, it was because we had no cell service and really bad weather coming. We decided the best course of action would be to move a little further to make the next leg of our trip easier, plus if we found cell service we could get some work done while it rained/snowed/blew 50mph. Plus, we’ve been in really remote locations for the last week or so and we could use a stock up. To that end, we moved the camper just outside of Winslow, AZ, to Homolovi State Park (Homolovi is Hopi for “Place of the Little Hills”).

Because of the crappy weather, we didn’t expect to leave the camper. However, it was actually somewhat sunny, and the park we were in had some interesting pueblo ruins, so we hopped in the truck to go check things out. First we ran into some wild burros!

It was hailing sideways when we arrived at the pueblo ruins, but we persevered. It’s crazy to think that these walls were built almost a thousand years ago.

There were signs explicitly stating that it was illegal to take pottery shards from the grounds, and we saw a rock that had some beautiful shards collected by park visitors. I was shocked that people were actually finding beautiful pottery shards and not stealing them.

But then we took a closer look at the ground. These aren’t rocks – they are ALL pottery remnants. Visitors have picked out the prettiest ones and they are displayed on rocks all over the ruins.

The first site we went to was pretty strict about staying on the paved path. We went to view a second site and found it had no such rules about exploring. Atlas might have helped the erosion move a smidge faster for one of these walls.

It looked like it was raining over Winslow, AZ, but this is a pretty renowned stop on Route 66, so we decided to brave the trip into town.

I guess there’s a song that everyone knows, about standing on a corner in Winslow, so that’s become a widely recognized photo op. Kyle sang the same line from the song all day.

The next morning we got packed up to leave. I took this photo so I could add it to the blog about how our stabilizers are breaking one by one, but later I noticed that some (probably tiny) person had kicked one of our chocks underneath the camper. One of my checklist items is a quick check under the camper right before we drive away, but I’m pretty lax about that since it’s getting harder for me to bend over. Fortunately, today was not one of those days and we didn’t drive away missing one of our brand new chocks!

The first half of our drive today was uneventful. We drove straight towards the mountains of Flagstaff, which must have taken the brunt of the snow in the forecast because they were white.

Kyle had planned a great lunch stop for us, where we could fuel up, park the camper, then explore a pedestrian bridge over a gorge. It ended up being a pretty difficult place to navigate the fuel pumps with such a large trailer, the parking lot was pretty small for an RV, and the bridge was not open.

At least the views were nice. This is the Little Colorado River, and it seems like all the “rivers” we’ve crossed lately have been no more than a trickle of water.

The rest of our drive was incredibly scenic.

At one point, I was looking at the rock formations in front of us, trying to figure out where the road went, when I saw cars high above us. We were about to climb!

We passed through Page, AZ and then the Utah border.

We arrived in Kanab, UT and parked our camper. We’ve reserved a month-long stay here, so this will be home base for a while as we explore southern Utah!

Our list of sights to see in this area probably exceeds our time, but no matter what we’re absolutely stoked to be here and explore for a while. We could use a little break from camper travel days! The average temperatures here should start out pretty comfortable, but by the end of the month it should be a little too cold for comfort. We’ll have to take advantage of the good weather days as much as we can in case we decide not to stay the full month.

Random facts that don’t fit anywhere else:
– We’ve paid an average of $30/night for campsites on our way from IN to Kanab. Our month-long booking saves us some money, about $23/night for our spot here. We can’t boondock because we need electric, so no free sites for us right now.