Goodbye Utah, Hello Arizona

After we left Moab, our plans were to move to another campground in southern Utah for a few days and to go see three more national parks and a state park.  Well, plans change :)...  We checked the weather forecast for the area we were going and it was supposed to be below freezing.  With our a/c being broken, that meant we were also without any heat.  We decided not to chance it and canceled our reservations at Kodachrome Basin State Park.  In hindsight, we would have probably been too rushed to really see it all anyway.  Better to wait for some other time...

We already had reservations lined up in Williams, Arizona for later in the week.  We called and they had room for us to check in that night and stay through our original reserved dates.  So, we left Moab and headed south.

The drive was beautiful, what a nice surprise!  (I hadn't checked it out beforehand, Dan knew where we needed to go and I just followed him :).)  When we told someone that we were going to Moab, they commented that the landscape with all the red rocks looks like the planet Mars.  Eh.  Not so much, in my opinion.  Too many trees.  Well, we passed through an area on the way to Williams that really did look like another planet.  In every direction as far as we could see was red rocks, some tall and gnarly, some small...all perched on the red sand.  The kids were all glued to the windows, they thought it was pretty cool. (I did too)

As we got closer to our destination, the landscape surprised us (me, anyway) again.  We were in a pine forest!  After all of the desert we had been through, I wasn't expecting trees and mountains.  There were even elk there.

The campground we chose was the Grand Canyon/Williams KOA.  There are two KOAs in Williams, the other one (Circle Pines) was right beside the Interstate.  The one we stayed at was about five miles off the Interstate, nice and quiet.

The first two full days we stayed close to camp.  I got all caught up on laundry (it was expensive there!).  Dan watched some football.  The kids played, played, and played some more :).  There were two other families staying there with kids and they all had so much fun together.  They rode bikes, played at the playground, and all took turns on the Wii in the campground game room.

The farthest we went those two days was into Williams for groceries and to check out the town.  They have a nice Safeway, in case you are ever in the area :).  The main street through town is Route 66, so that was fun.  The depot for the Grand Canyon Railway is also in Williams.  The vintage train takes you to the Grand Canyon, you are given time to sight see there, then they bring you back to Williams.  Our family could have taken the ride for $400 coach or $800 first class.  HAHAHA!  They must be joking...

While we were disappointed to miss the other parks, a few days to just hang out around the camper were just what we needed.