Early and Cold then Hot

April 3, 2025 — Day 10

Grand Canyon Camper Village, Tusayan, AZ — White Tank Mountain Regional Park, Waddell AZ

We got up early this morning. We remember how bad the road was coming in with the bumps and the wind. Now we had to drive that road again, south, and the forecast was for bumps and wind. Well, the forecast was for wind but we seriously doubted that they had fixed mile upon mile of bumpy road.

It’s not a time zone trick. The time in the upper left corner, 4:38 am, is correct. We leave early on windy days because the winds out here always pick up as the day warms up. We didn’t expect frost on this trip after the first day or so! (susan here: Also we hadn’t caught up to this time zone. Not sure what time zone our bodies were in but I was regularly waking between 3:30 and 4:30. I’m going to guess Central-ish.)

We never tire of the scenery here. This is probably west of Flagstaff.

Antelope!

Vistas for miles. (susan here: It’s several weeks later because we were visiting the kids and then a friend up in Payson. We don’t blog during visiting time because visiting time is visiting time! However, in this time line, just yesterday (4/25) we’d learn a lot about those mountains.

We just love how the SW states decorate their bridges.

We were running so early that we couldn’t check into White Tank. A quick check on the Google Map and Paul spotted the Pioneer Living History Museum and it was a quick off and on stop. There was an in and out driveway, good. Except it wasn’t! The second driveway was for the Pioneer RV Resort. We should have turned in there but didn’t and we were forced to make a very sketchy U-turn on a very wide spot on the dirt a bit down the road.

If you recall from the night we spent in the brewery — Paul here: LOL, yeah, which one!? — we measured the turning radius at about 70 feet. What sat view does show is the drop-off, Clifford got really tippy, but we crept along and made the turn without incident.

The Pioneer Living History Museum is a very cool place. But don’t go there in April, it is already too hot. It’s generally staffed by volunteers who don’t show up in the summer. They don’t want to wear the period costumes in the blistering heat. Can’t say we blame them. We can’t imagine how the settlers lived here. Here’s a big photo dump.

Early on we needed relief from the heat.

This is a coin press at the bank. There was also a paper money press.

The Teacherage. Who knew that that was a word!

It was a concept ahead of its time. Sometime in the late 1880’s or early 1890’s the community in Pleasant Valley, east of Payson, AZ, decided to dedicate a small cabin as a home for their teacher. As a concept, it was not necessarily unique. There had long been parsonages built to attract ministers to small communities in rural areas. It was exceptional when it came to teachers. It is true that, by 1910, teacherages were all the rage in rural communities, as it relieved local families of the burden of boarding the teachers in their homes and provided an incentive for a better quality of teacher to accept a position. All the same, in 1890, it was truly progressive thinking.

All the buildings and trees were covered in fairy lights. Clearly not period. But they hold events there, and the chapel was available for weddings so it makes sense for these modern times to have string lights on buildings that are very, very old. (susan here: I wonder what the people who used those buildings back then would think about the 2026 people’s improvements!?)

By this time the heat was really getting to us. We skipped the back loop and instead sat at a picnic table in the shade of some trees. We could hear some life bird but never saw it.

We happily sat, again, in the shade of this Victorian that was very much in need of paint. (susan here: the admission price is very reasonable at $8 per person. Really for what they have, and how much upkeep there must be, they should raise it. To what I don’t know but $8 is a steal.)

We made it back to the entrance and again sat in the shade. (susan here: Are you sensing a theme here? I know you are! You must be thinking they find an awful lot of sunny places and are darned lucky to find shade.)

The plants show just how lush the desert can be. We don’t get it, this is desert, but look at those trees in the background, they’re huge.

They had a telephone museum for some reason. It has lots of things, but it also had AC. Clifford has AC but we were certain it had heated up. (susan here: To the surprise of neither of us it had and it was blistering hot inside.)

We opened the slide, had lunch, then headed on down to White Tank.

Some big construction project! Phoenix is in constant construction. (susan here: on the surface that sounds like a ‘meh’ statement. But when you realize it can take an hour to cross most of it and everywhere you look is construction it takes on a different meaning. It once took us the better part of an hour to get from White Tank Campground in Waddell to the kids house which is about 25 miles.)

We had just descend from 6,600 feet to about 1,500 feet. This has interesting consequences. You notice it opening water bottles, pumping gas (you get a big swoosh) and even a crushed shampoo bottle!