Willow Lake (& more) around the Granite Dells in Prescott AZ

Willow Lake is like the quiet, hands-in-his-pockets, unassuming brother to its neighbor, the more popular, vibrant and beloved Watson Lake. Both lakes are situated on the edge of Prescott, Arizona, and they share the wonders of the stunning rock formations known as the Granite Dells. Willow Lake is on the west side of the Dells and Watson Lake is on the east side, and miles of hiking trails roam through the vast acreage of boulders between them.

Willow Lake Arizona & More!

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After taking in lots of “WOW” sunset moments at Watson Lake, we finally went over to Willow Lake to see what was there. It was midday and the light was harsh, but what a beautiful place it turned out to be. We wished we’d gone there earlier in our Prescott RV trip!

We started at the Willow Lake boat ramp on the north shore and were surprised to see waves incessantly lapping the shore and the trees trunks! The lake level was very high and the wind was strong that day.

Willow Lake Arizona boat ramp

High water on a windy day at Willow Lake.

Along the shore of Willow Lake there were huge expanses of boulders, and we were soon hopping from one to another. There were fabulous patterns in the rocks, like veins running all through them.

Willow Lake Arizona Patterns in the Dells at Willow Lake Arizona

Colorful veins meander through these rocks by Willow Lake.

Buddy was on the lookout for any stray ground squirrels that might be scampering about. Mark caught him up on his lookout perch from below.

Willow Lake Arizona It's a long ways down!

“Is there a squirrel down there?”

Willow Lake Arizona Photographer and pupppy

I see you!

Arizona Delorme Atlas

Some of the rocks in the Dells had quite a bit of color.

Willow Lake Granite Dells in Arizona

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Suddenly we heard the familiar haunting cry of a Gambel’s quail. I just love the way these guys dress up with very dapper trim on their bodies and faces and that wonderful little topknot on their heads.

721 Gambel Quail at Willow Lake Arizona

All dressed up and ready to go!

Gambel Quail at Willow Lake Arizona 2

“Are you taking my picture? I wasn’t ready yet!”

We noticed a young man expertly navigating the crazy boulder formations and discovered he’s a local who hikes around the Dells around Willow Lake all the time. He highly recommended that we follow a trail that headed to the north and east past an RV park on the edge of the Dells, and he mentioned intriguing things we’d see, including a red bench and a bridge.

This sounded like fun, so off we went.

Hiking at Willow Lake Arizona

“C’mon, Dad, let’s go find that red bench!”

As we hiked away from Willow Lake, we saw some wonderful old trees and lots of massive expanses of boulders.

Tree and shadow at Willow Lake Arizona

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Willow Lake Arizona granite dells

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We came to a sign with a large map on it and could clearly see the trail that went to the red bench. Woo hoo! This was definitely a really cool area. We hiked along the trail for quite a while.

But then the trail suddenly went straight up a boulder hill. Mark stayed below while Buddy and I checked it out. At the top it seemed like we were standing in a sea of boulders, but I sure didn’t see a red bench or a bridge anywhere.

Willow Lake hike through the Granite Dells in Arizona

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On the way down we met a couple hiking the Willow Lake trails with a dog. After the pups introduced themselves with a few sniffs, I asked the couple where the heck the red bench was. It turned out we’d missed a fork in the trail and had taken the Ascent Trail instead of the Red Bench Trail. Oops!

Oh well. What we saw was still cool and it was a beautiful day to be out hiking.

Suddenly, a mountain biker rode over the boulders past us. Wow! Then his friend appeared and the two of them rode up and down the boulders like experts. What fun!

Granite Dells at Willow Lake Arizona mountain biking

Don’t try this at home!

Mountain biker in the Granite Dells at Willow Lake Arizona

These mountain bikers at Willow Lake made it look so easy.

Granite Dells mountain biking at Willow Lake Arizona

Weeeee!

Arizona Highways Scenic Drives

Buddy watched the mountain bikers for a moment, but he was much more interested in athletes of the rodent kind.

Regal pup

“Not just rodents, Mom. I’ll chase anything that moves. Lizards are good!”

Willow Lake is definitely worth a visit, and we’ll be back at sunrise or sunset next time to add a dash of color to our photos. In the meantime, we found a few more photos of the Granite Dells at Watson Lake buried in our computers along with some more lovely shots of Lynx Lake that we thought you’d enjoy.

Here you go — the Granite Dells and cactus flowers at Watson Lake:

Granite Dells at Watson Lake Arizona

Granite Dells at Watson Lake (next door to Willow Lake).

Full moon at the Watson Lake Granite Dells in Arizona

Granite Dells under a full moon.

Red cactus flowers at the Watson Lake Granite Dells Arizona

Red cactus flowers in the Dells.

Red cactus flowers in Arizona

Happy cactus flowers smiling at the world.

Red cactus flowers at the Watson Lake Granite Dells Arizona

Look for these red beauties in the springtime!

And here’s the southeastern corner of Lynx Lake where the water trickles into the lake and forms wonderful shallow pools on its way:

A trickle of water flows into Lynx Lake in Arizona

The pools of water in the southeast corner of Lynx Lake are as clear as glass.

A glorious sunset reflected at Lynx Lake, Arizona

Tree reflections at Lynx Lake Arizona

A reflected archway in the lake.

Lynx Lake Sunset

Goodnight!

We really enjoyed our brief RV trip to explore the lakes in the area around Prescott Arizona. There are actually even more lakes nearby that were on our list but we didn’t get to…so now we have to go back, and we will!

Puppy fur blown by gentle breezes

Buddy is looking forward to exploring the Prescott area some more.

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Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott AZ – SPECTACULAR!

May 2023 – The Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott, Arizona, are a spectacular moonscape of rounded granite boulders that beg to be climbed on and explored. These gorgeous rocks line the shore of the lake and pop up out of the water here and there, forming mini islands. The views from every vantage point are magnificent.

Watson Lake Granite Dells in Prescott Arizona

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We have seen The Dells from a distance many times, catching brief glimpses of them as they appeared on the horizon for a split second while we drove to or from Prescott’s historic Courthouse Square.

This year, on an RV trip to nearby Lynx Lake, we had a chance to get a closer look at Watson Lake’s Granite Dells, and what a rewarding experience that turned out to be!

Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott AZ

The Granite Dells are a magnificent moonscape of rounded boulders on the shores of Watson Lake.

Kayak at the Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott AZ

The Dells are a fabulous place to explore on foot — or by boat!

We climbed and scrambled and followed the narrow hiking trails along the edges of Watson Lake. The trails dodged between the boulders and sometimes vanished to become just white dots painted on the rocks until the trail resumed on the other side of the boulders. It made for fun and easy route finding and gave each hike an amusing twist!

Hiking trail through the Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott Arizona

The hiking trails were gravel in some places but became white dots painted on the rocks in others!

Storage ottoman bench for RV

Buddy was totally in his element and scampered over the rocks in sheer delight!

Climbing the boulders at the Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott AZ

Buddy was in his element. We were too!

Hiking the boulders at the Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott AZ

All smiles!

We made a point to go to Watson Lake at dusk on several afternoons, hoping to catch the Granite Dells in the beautiful soft golden light of late afternoon and then watch a stunning sunset. Mother Nature has its own agenda for sunsets, however!

The boulders seemed to glow as the last rays of sun hit the Dells.

The Dells at Watson Lake in Prescott Arizona

Golden glow.

Sunset at Watson Lake Granite Dells Prescott Arizona

What a place!

As I began setting up for a shot, I noticed my shadow on the rocks. How cool is that?!

Photography at the Granite Dells and Watson Lake Prescott Arizona

A ghostly figure under a full moon across from me was busy taking photos of the incredible landscape!

Watson Lake is very popular with kayakers, and we saw lots of them out on the water. As the sun began to sink low in the sky, the kayaks came in from all directions to return to the boat ramp.

Kayaking on Watson Lake between the Dells in Prescott Arizona

Exploring the hiking trails was great, but checking out the views from a kayak might be even better!

Kayaking past the Granite Dells at Watson Lake in Prescott Arizona

Kayaks returned to the boat ramp at the end of the day.

Kayak at Watson Lake Granite Dells in Prescott Arizona at dusk

A kayaker navigates the island Dells to return to shore after a nice ride.

Every direction we looked we saw a stunning view, and we wandered happily from one dazzling photo op to the next. Some of the trees were standing in the water. They looked quite peaceful and very much at home!

Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott Arizona

Heavy rains this year raised the water level until the trees were immersed.

Granite Dells at Watson Lake in Prescott Arizona

The trees didn’t seem to mind this extra drink one bit.

Flashlight

When the sun slipped over the horizon, Mark caught a starburst between the tree branches. Just as he hit the shutter button, Buddy walked right into the picture! But we both love how it turned out.

Puppy at the Dells in Prescott Arizona Watson Lake

Buddy photo-bombed this photo at just the right moment.

Buddy then took a seat so as not to photo-bomb any more images, and he kept a close eye on us.

Puppy resting in the Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott AZ

Buddy patiently waited and watched as we took endless photos.

One night, the sunset was more subdued than we would have wished, but the setting was so glorious it didn’t matter. Such beauty!

Watson Lake Dells near Prescott Arizona the Granite Dells

The Granite Dells at dusk.

Watson Lake Granite Dells near Prescott AZ

Magnificent!

On another night, the brilliant colors in the sky we’d hoped for never appeared at all. But we were in seventh heaven anyway, crawling around on these rocks and savoring the gorgeous views.

The Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott Arizona plus a puppy

I noticed this wonderful dead tree by the side of the trail and Buddy watched me as I got set up. Behind him, Mark was busy creating another beautiful composition.

Watson Lake Granite Dells near Prescott Arizona

Watson Lake and the Granite Dells are such a surprise in the high desert and pine forests of Prescott AZ.

Watson Lake Granite Dells in Prescott AZ

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At last we got a sunset to remember. The sky and its reflections in the water went from bright orange to peachy pink to a rich pink and blue.

Granite Dells at Watson Lake Prescott AZ

Lots of people come out to Watson Lake to watch the sunset, and when the sky first lit up on fire, we heard a roar of cheers from somewhere high up in the rocks!

Sunset behind the Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott Arizona

Then the sky turned peach and pink.

Granite Dells at Watson Lake near Prescott Arizona

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over

And then it settled into a rich pink and blue. Ahhhh!

Granite Dells at Watson Lake Prescott AZ.jpg

“That was such a rush, I’ve gotta rest for a while!”

We will always remember that afternoon!

If you visit Prescott, Arizona, be sure to wander down to Watson Lake Park and explore the Granite Dells. There are lots of trails to choose from. We stayed close to the shore but the Dells fill a huge area that extends all the way from Watson Lake to neighboring Willow Lake a few miles away.

Watson Lake is popular with both locals and visitors, and you’ll have plenty of company to share the experience with. But everyone around you will be grinning from ear to ear and will be very happy to be there. It’s that kind of place!

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Location of The Dells – Google Maps

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Lynx Lake, Arizona – Great RV Camping Near Prescott!

Lynx Lake, Arizona, and the nearby attractions around Prescott proved to be a great place for a week-long RV camping shakedown cruise in our toy hauler. This trip gave us a chance to do some exploring and test our solar power upgrade and generator repair before we headed out on our summer travels.

Lynx Lake Arizona sunset

A fiery sunset at Lynx Lake’s South Shore.


Lynx Lake is a quiet spot in the higher elevations of north-central Arizona that is known for great fishing. Sitting at 5,500′ altitude, it is cooler than the Verde Valley and Sonoran Desert parts of Arizona.

We were hoping to get some nice photos, and we played a lot with bracketing our photos (taking identical shots at different exposures) and HDR (combining those images to get the most out of the highlights and shadows).

Sunset at Lynx Lake Arizona

Lynx Lake at dusk.

Lynx Lake is manmade and has two recreational areas, one at the north end near the dam and the other at the south end. The South Shore Day Use area is a wonderful spot with picnic areas and lots of places to fish. That’s where we spent most of our time.

Picnic Day Use area at Lynx Lake Arizona

The day use area at the South Shore of Lynx Lake is beautifully outfitted with picnic areas and grills.

Lynx Lake is known for good fishing and it’s well stocked! There were fishermen along the shore and trolling in boats at every time of day.

Fishing at Lynx Lake Arizona

People were fishing all along the shoreline.

Fishing and trolling at Lynx Lake Arizona

Fishermen were trolling in boats too!

Arizona Delorme Atlas

We followed the shoreline to the far southeast corner where we found a large gravel beach that was perfect for kids and dogs to play in the shallow water.

Shoreline of Lynx Lake Arizona

There’s a beach with shallow water that’s idea for kids and dogs.

A stream ran through a small craggy canyon to the lake. I suspect this area is usually dry or just a trickle, but because of the heavy winter and spring rains, the water spread out into marvelous shallow pools that mirrored their surroundings.

Stream leading to Lynx Lake Arizona

We followed a craggy canyon upstream at the southeast end of the lake.

We caught the trees making lacy shadows in the water.

Tree shadows at Lynx Lake Arizona

Leafy patterns in the water.

Buddy just loved this part of the lake. He loves going in the water, but only up to his armpits! The water was the perfect depth, and he and a few other dogs had fun chasing sticks.

Happy puppy

Buddy and other dogs had fun playing in the water.

A slightly overgrown trail followed these pools far back into the canyon and took us to a surprise manmade waterfall. It was wonderful to be here when there was so much water flowing.

Manmade waterfall at the South Shore of Lynx Lake Arizona

We came across a manmade waterfall that was flowing really well after the heavy winter and spring rains.

At dusk, we wandered back through the canyon along the stream to the main part of the lake where the sun was beginning to do its magic.

Lynx Lake Arizona southeast tip

Peace at twilight.

Lynx Lake Arizona peaceful shoreline

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After all that fresh air and fun at the lake Buddy crashed when we got back to the RV!

Tired pup after a day at the lake

Buddy was dog tired after all that!

There are two campgrounds at Lynx Lake: Lynx Lake Campground and Hilltop Campground.

Lynx Lake Campground has hookups and the sites are better suited to larger RVs. It’s also located halfway between the two main access points to Lynx Lake — the North Shore and the South Shore.

Hilltop Campground is near the South Shore and is better suited to smaller RVs and tents. It is dry camping only. Campsites at both campgrounds can be reserved.

Renogy 200 watt solar panel

We decided to take our chances on squeezing into a site at Hilltop Campground. Some campsites are first come-first serve, which we prefer because you can see what you’re getting yourself into. But with busier campgrounds these days, and not knowing how busy Hilltop Campground might be, we opted to reserve a campsite ahead of time.

We chose a campsite the USFS website said was suitable for a trailer up to 40’ long. Since ours is only 33’ we thought it would be fine. Not!

As we stood there scratching our heads trying to figure out how to shoe-horn our rig into the sloped and tightly curved pull-through campsite, the campground host showed up in his golf cart and kindly offered to put us in a big former campground host site that he kept available for people in a bind like we were. Phew! It was plenty long enough and didn’t have any weird sharp turns.

RV Camping at Hilltop Campground Lynx Lake Arizona

We had a wonderful stay at Hilltop Campground.

Many sites at Hilltop Campground are called pull-through sites, but they are really just pullouts along the campground loop road. You’re basically just pulled over on the side of the road. We would have fit into several of those but they were full.

campsite at Hilltop Campground at Lynx Lake Arizona

Most pull-through campsites at Hilltop Campground are simply pull-outs from the campground loop road.

The campground pads in the campsites themselves are beautifully constructed, however. It’s a very hilly area, and each site has a large tent pad, picnic table and fire ring, often at different levels and facing into the woods.

Campsite at Hilltop Campground at Lynx Lake Arizona hiking trails

The campground pads are nicely constructed. Many are multi-level and there’s always a large tent pad and area around the picnic table and fire ring. Plenty of room to spread out!

There are wonderful hiking trails running all through ponderosa woods around Hilltop Campground and down to the lake. These would be ideal for mountain biking. We didn’t bring any bikes with us, but we walked these trails every day. Well, Buddy ran them at full speed sometimes! We were always the only ones on the trail.

Hilltop Campground at Lynx Lake Arizona hiking trails

The hiking trails around the campground were fabulous and rarely used.

We love ponderosa pine woods because the trees are spaced wide apart, creating a natural park-like atmosphere. You don’t feel closed in by the trees and have lots of open areas between them strewn with soft pine needles.

Ponderosa pine forest at Lynx Lake Arizona

A natural alley in the ponderosa pines.

Each evening we wandered down to the lake to catch the sunset.

Lynx Lake Arizona at sunset

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A pretty sunset was reflected in the lake’s surface.

There is a hiking trail that goes all the way around the lake. On the eastern shoreline it is a narrow trail that is very lightly used. On the western shore it is a paved walking path that is very popular. We liked the intimacy of the eastern shoreline trail.

Hiking trail on the eastern shore of Lynx Lake Arizona

The hiking trail along the eastern shore of the lake is narrow and has very few hikers on it.

Park bench on the eastern shore of Lynx Lake

At one point on the eastern shoreline trail we came across a park bench with a pretty view.

The sunsets were lovely. The week we were there was windy, but on a few evenings the wind quieted down completely and all the ripples in the water disappeared.

Lynx Lake Arizona at sunset

The water was perfectly still as the sun set.

Sunset at Lynx Lake Arizona

The sky lit up just as the sun sank behind the distant trees.

It is amazing how much we relax when we’re out in our RV. As soon as we set up camp, we both let out a huge sigh of relief.

It’s not that our conventional home-based lifestyle is stressful, but somehow there’s always a lot to do that keeps us busy all the time. Also, the focus is very much inward and homeward.

On the road, the focus of the RV lifestyle is outward and full of curiosity about what lies around the next corner. The “busy-ness” of day-to-day living slips away. When we’re camping in the woods, our to do list dwindles to the simplest things: eat, sleep, smell the fresh air, hike, ride the side-by-side, take photos and relax. Napping sneaks in here and there too!

Napping in a toy hauler

Buddy and Mark love napping in the upper bunk bed!

Our newly upgraded solar power system worked great. The batteries never dipped below 12.5 volts. We also had a chance to run the generator, and it purred like a kitten. Yay!

But our real reason for this trip — besides doing a shakedown and exploring Lynx Lake — was to spend some time at nearby Watson Lake and Willow Lake, home to the spectacular Granite Dells.

Here’s a sampler of what’s over there — with lots more to come!

Watson Lake Granite Dells in Prescott Arizona

The Granite Dells at Watson Lake were fabulous — more pics coming!

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How to Fix a Car or Truck Key Fob in Minutes!

Vehicle key fobs are insanely expensive, but when ours died, we found out how to fix a car or truck key fob in just a few minutes…for next to nothing! What a relief (and surprise) it was to get our key fob working again rather than buying a new one!

How to fix a car or truck key fob in minutes!

Our car key fob died a slow death. First it couldn’t open the doors while standing or approaching the car on the passenger’s side. Then the problem migrated to the driver’s side too. Ugh!

We tried standing closer to the car and further away. We tried holding the key fob higher in the air, holding it lower, and aiming it in different directions. We opened the car key fob up and cleaned all the electrical contacts and changed the battery. But it was all to no avail. Nothing we tried would make the car key fob work reliably, and eventually the key fob stopped working all together.

The only way to unlock the car was to use the key, and the only key lock on the whole car was located on the driver’s door.

Oh my! Talk about inconvenience! Now we had to walk up to the driver’s side door to unlock all the doors and then walk all the way around the car to the other side if we wanted to access the seats on the passenger’s side! How on earth did our moms live without remote car key fobs in their day, what with bunches of kids running around, carrying groceries and all?

We didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to get a new key fob, so we dug around on the internet and found a really easy fix!

All that was required was an ordinary paper hole punch, a strip of aluminum foil, some tweezers and some glue! And we had these things already!

What happens with some key fobs as they age is that the electrical contacts under the buttons on the shell of the fob wear away. The idea with this fix is to replace that conductive material with a tiny piece of aluminum foil.

Our key fob has three buttons: Lock, Unlock and Trunk. So, we punched out 3 holes in the aluminum foil and set the small round pieces aside.

How to fix a car or truck key fob using aper hole punch and aluminum foil

Using an ordinary paper hole punch, punch 3 holes in a piece of aluminum foil and keep the tiny round pieces.

Then we removed the little electronic board from the key fob and, using a toothpick, put a tiny dab of glue on the rubber at each of the three contact points under the key fob buttons. Then, delicately holding each piece of aluminum foil with tweezers, we placed the foil on the three contact points in the key fob. We made sure to use just enough glue to hold each piece in place without affecting the connectivity between the electrical contact and the aluminum foil.

Car key fob opened up with the electrical contacts exposed

Glue the pieces of aluminum foil onto the electrical contact points in the key fob.

How to fix a car or truck key fob using a hole punch and aluminum foil

Closer view: aluminum foil pieces glued on contact points in the key fob.

We put the car key fob back together again, and BINGO!! The key fob worked perfectly locking and unlocking the doors and unlocking the trunk every single time, no matter where we stood or how high or low we held the darn thing!!

Paper Hole PunchAluminum foil

So…if you have a car or truck key fob that isn’t working right, even after changing the battery and cleaning the electrical contacts, grab a hole punch, some aluminum foil and some tweezers and try glueing the foil onto the contact points under the key fob buttons!

Not every vehicle key fob can be opened and repaired in this way, but you may be in luck just like we were!

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RV Keyless Entry Door Lock Problems? Try this quick fix!

Do you have one of those groovy RV keyless entry door locks on your rig? Our Genesis Supreme toy hauler came with one, and we weren’t sure we’d like it until we started using it. Then we loved it! But after a while it started having problems and acting up.

RV Keyless Entry Door Lock Repair & Quick Fix

The way these keyless entry door locks work is you punch in a secret code on the keypad and then it sings a little jingle. When you are unlocking the door, the notes in the tune ascend to a higher pitch. When you are locking it, the notes descend to a lower pitch. Kinda makes sense for opening and locking the door. Sing up and it opens, sing down and it locks.

One day when we went to unlock the door, the tune wasn’t so friendly — it made a nasty noise with two notes. Right after the nasty tune it made the sound of locking the door…but we were unlocking it!

RV keyless entry door lock

An RV keyless entry door lock is awesome — until it starts acting up!

For the next few months, every time we locked or unlocked the door we heard the nasty error message tune followed by the opposite sound for what we were doing. Unlocking the door gave the sound of locking the door, and locking it gave the sound of unlocking the door.

Every time we locked and unlocked the rig, we each thought, “We’ve gotta look up these weird sounds in the manual!” But we never did. The door still locked and unlocked, it just made weird noises. We lived with it.

RV keyless entry door lock

You enter the code and then press the “lock” or “unlock” button. It’s magic!

RV Keyless entry door lock

Finally, the other day, Mark decided enough was enough, and he opened up the battery compartment on the back side of the keyless entry keypad (on the inside of the entry door).

Back of RV keyless entry door lock

The battery compartment is accessed by removing these two screws.

The problem was immediately obvious: the batteries had leaked battery juice all over the place and they were dying a slow death.

Insides of an RV keyless entry door lock

Mark removed the cover and saw dried white fluid from the batteries.

Leaky Duracell AA batteries from an RV keyless entry door lock

The batteries were covered with yuck.

He cleaned out the little compartment that holds the batteries, put in a new set of four AA batteries, and POOF! The RV keyless entry door lock worked like a charm. No error code tune, and the locking and unlocking sounds matched what we were doing.

Duracell AA Batteries

So, if you have an RV keyless entry door lock on your rig, and it starts making unexpected sounds when you lock and unlock the door, you might need new batteries. Take the cover off the keypad and check them out. And keep some spare AA batteries on hand!

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Fossil Creek Waterfall – A Pretty Hike to a Scenic Cascade

November 2022 – The Fossil Creek Waterfall in Arizona’s Verde Valley is a scenic cascade at the end of a pretty hike through the woods. It’s especially beautiful when there’s a bit of fall color!

Fossil Creek Waterfall in Arizona a pretty hike to a scenic cascade

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The whole Fossil Creek area was closed for several years due to wildfire erosion damage. When it reopened, lots of people jumped at the chance to hike in this beautiful area once again, and we were among the the very first who showed up the day it opened!

The trailhead is accessed via Fossil Creek Road. One end of this road intersects with AZ Route 260 about 8 miles east of Camp Verde and the other end rolls into the west side of the town of Strawberry.

Arizona Delorme Atlas

Coming from the west, Fossil Creek Road is a dirt road, and since we were unsure what condition it might be in, we thought it would be fun to drive our Polaris RZR side-by-side instead of our truck. The road turned out to be well graded and the drive was easy, even for a passenger car.

Riding a side-by-side to Fossil Creek Arizona

The RZR made getting to the trailhead a lot of fun!

The area near the trailhead had sustained quite a bit of damage. Fortunately, another pair of hikers who knew the area well were parking their car just as we arrived, and they helped us find the start of the trail to the Fossil Creek Waterfall.

Buddy, our little Trail Scout, was excited to lead the way after that!

Dog on the trail at Fossil Creek in Arizona

Buddy loves his job as Trail Scout!

It was autumn and some of the trees were wearing their finest fall colors.

A tree lights up with fall color on the Fossil Creek Waterfall trail in Arizona

Quite a few trees were outfitted in their Fall Finest.

We walked slowly and savored the pretty autumn colors around us. It wasn’t as dazzling as the fall foliage along Colorado’s San Juan Highway or in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but it was lovely nonetheless.

Fall foliage at Fossil Creek in Arizona

We saw some yellow…

Fall color at Fossil Creek in Arizona

…and some red.

Arizona Highways Scenic Drives
Autumn leaves in Arizona

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The trail was a little rocky in some spots and there were a few small water crossings too. Someone had built a bridge across the creek, although it was probably easier to hop over the thin stream of water since it wasn’t very high!

The trail took us across a small bridge

It was easier to jump over the tiny creek, but I took the rickety bridge instead!

Suddenly, we heard rushing water in the distance ahead of us. Some hikers who had done the hike before noticed us staring at it hopefully as they passed. “That’s not the waterfall!” one said with a wink.

We spotted the first cascade at Fossil Creek in the distance

We spotted a small waterfall in the distance.

This little cascade was very pretty, though, and we hung out for a while, sitting under the canopy of trees listening to the sounds of the water tumbling over the rocks.

Fossil Creek Arizona has many waterfalls

We found ourselves in a lovely grotto next to the rushing water.

Fossil Creek Arizona waterfall cascade

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Buddy found his happy place up on a rock and watched us as we took photos.

Beautiful dog at Fossil Creek in Arizona

Buddy surveyed the scene from up on a rock.

We finally tore ourselves away from this lovely little oasis and continued our delightfully shaded hike.

Hike to the Fossil Creek Waterfall in Arizona

The hike to the Fossil Creek Waterfall has plenty of shade.

Fossil Creek Arizona in autumn with fall foliage

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The sounds of the little cascade faded away and were soon replaced with the growing roar of the Fossil Creek Waterfall ahead of us.

Suddenly, the waterfall came into view. Wow!

Fossil Creek Waterfall in Arizona in autumn with fall color

And there it was…beautiful!

A small group of people arrived shortly after us. Some jumped in the water for a swim and made their way over to the waterfall, clambering up on the rock shelf beneath it and going behind the spray to peek out from behind the wall of water.

Swimmers dive into the water at Fossil Creek Waterfall in Arizona

Fossil Creek is a popular swimming hole!

Swimmers stand behind Fossil Creek Waterfall in Arizona

They made it!

We sat down for a while, enjoying the pretty surroundings while hikers and swimmers came and went. We learned that Fossil Creek is so popular in the summertime that you have to get a permit and only a small number of permits are given out each day.

We felt fortunate because it was the off-season and the area had just opened (without fanfare), so we didn’t have to get a permit, and there weren’t any crowds.

Fossil Creek waterfall in Arizona

Seeing Fossil Creek Waterfall is a great reward at the end of this pretty hike.

If you find yourself in Arizona’s Verde Valley, and Fossil Creek is open, we highly recommend you do the hike to the waterfall!

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RV Solar Upgrade with Renogy and Go Power !

We recently did an RV solar upgrade project that proved to be both easy and cheap. We spent just $480 to jump from 190 watts of power to 570 watts, more than enough for our boondocking off-the-grid RV lifestyle, and it took less than three hours to install. What a great bang for the buck!

RV Solar Upgrade - CHEAP & EASY with Go Power + Renogy

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Our Genesis Supreme 28CRT fifth wheel toy hauler came with a small factory-installed Go Power RV solar power system that included a single 190 watt solar panel, a 1500 watt pure sine wave inverter and a 30 amp PWM solar charge controller connected to four dealer-installed Group 24 12-volt wet cell batteries with a capacity of 280 amp-hours.

Factory-installed RV solar power systems like this one are now a common option on many new RVs, and Go Power (a subsidiary of Dometic) is often the brand that RV manufacturers use.

Although none of the components in the system are “best of breed,” the Go Power system worked fine for us as we boondocked every night for four months last summer. As the months wore on towards the Fall (and away from the summer solistice), however, the batteries struggled more and more each day to reach full charge. In the last few weeks in late August and September they never did.

Fortunately, the Go Power 30 amp solar charge controller that came with this system can handle up to 600 watts of solar panels, so an RV solar upgrade was possible without replacing the charge controller!

As we contemplated doing an RV solar upgrade all last summer, the debate was: do we ditch the whole factory installed system and replace it with top of the line components or do we simply add some more panels to the existing system?

 

How much solar power do you really need when you live in an RV?

Answering that question is really important because it’s incredibly easy to end up installing a far bigger and fancier system than you actually need after hearing people discussing their mammoth systems around the campfire.

Just because a friend has a huge system doesn’t mean it will make sense for you to break the bank to install one too!

How big an RV solar power system you need depends entirely on how much power you use in your day-to-day RV lifestyle and how often your boondock.

We boondock every night, but we don’t use much power. Also, since we are now seasonal travelers instead of the full-timers as we used to be, we travel primarily in the summertime when the sun is high in the sky at a good angle for the solar panels and the days are long, allowing the solar panels to work for a few extra hours.

Our primary power use is our two laptops (which we use a lot), the water pump, and the interior lights for an hour at night (we go to bed early). We don’t watch TV and we rarely use the microwave or hair dryer.

Running the air conditioning on battery power is not possible for any but the most massive RV solar power charging systems and battery banks, so it’s not part of the equation for most people. We rely on the generator for running our a/c.

With our traveling lifestyle of minimal power use, we happily lived on 480 watts and 555 watts in our trailer and sailboat respectivlely for 13 years. That was plenty of power for us except in the dead of winter when the sun was low in the sky (poor angle to the solar panels) and the days were short.

RV solar panel installation using Go Power and Renogy panels

Our toy hauler had one factory installed solar panel (center).
An easy RV solar upgrade with two more panels tripled our battery charging capacity!

When we did those installations in 2008 and 2010, they were considered to be sizable for a boat or an RV. Seeing a rig with 1,000 watts on the roof in those days made everyone’s head turn while they mouthed the word, “WOW!”

However, by today’s standards, we had small systems on both our RV and sailboat! The third owner of our boat Groovy upgraded the solar panels to 930 total watts instead of the original 555 watts.

Last year, we met a full-timing family who had 3,500 watts of solar power on the roof of their 44′ toy hauler. They also had two huge Victron solar charge controllers (the panels were wired in two separate arrays) and they had a massive bank of lithium-ion batteries in the basement.

They could run their air conditioning on battery power all day and they had a full-size residential refrigerator to boot. They liked to keep their TV on all day long and the kids spent hours watching videos on their iPads. The kids also did homework on their laptops and everyone in the family had had phones and laptops to charge. They also had several internet access devices that gave them a total of 500 GB of data each month. They used it all and sometimes fell a little short by month’s end!

So, the size of the system you need depends entirely on how you live your RV lifestyle.

We knew when we bought our toy hauler last year that 190 watts wouldn’t be enough for us long term, but we didn’t have time to fuss with and do an RV solar upgrade before starting our summer journey. We were also curious to see how it performed right from the factory.

The solar charge controller is a lower end PWM unit (Pulse Width Modulation) rather an MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) type of controller that eeks out more power from the panels. We wondered if the system would work at all. We were pleasantly surprised that it worked quite well and did the job all summer long, although our batteries did get down to 11.9 or 12.0 volts on quite a few colder mornings at summer’s end, much lower than we’ve ever seen our house batteries before.

Go Power 30 amp PWM solar charge controller

Go Power 30 amp PWM solar charge controller mounted on a wall inside the rig.

Ultimately, we decided the simplest and most stress-free RV solar upgrade we could do would be to add more solar panels and leave all the other components alone.

RV Solar Upgrade – Adding New Solar Panels – Wired in Parallel or in Series?

The Go Power solar panel that came with the rig is a 12 volt 190 watt panel. Although the Go Power 30 amp solar charge controller can handle 600 watts of power coming from the panels, it is unable to operate on anything but 12 volts. Fancier charge controllers can work with the panels at 24, 36 or 48 volts and then step down the voltage to 12 volts to charge the batteries.

This limitation meant we didn’t have the option of using 24 volt panels which are generally cheaper per watt. Also, it meant that the new panels would have to be wired in parallel with the existing panel to keep them all at 12 volts rather than having the option of wiring them in series because it would put the solar array at 36 volts.

As a side note, even though we didn’t have a choice in this case, the decision whether to wire the solar panels in parallel versus in series is a matter of how much shade the panels might encounter and how long the cable runs will be versus the guage of the wire.

When solar panels are wired in series, if one panel gets shaded, all the panels reduce their power output dramatically. Also, the voltage of the panels is cumulative while the current stays the same. That is, three 12-volt panels will be at 36 volts but the current running in the wires will be the nominal current of a single panel, for instance, 10 amps.

When solar panels are wired in parallel, if one panel gets shaded, the others continue to produce power at their normal rate. So, in a three panel array, if one panel drops out you still get 2/3 of the power because the other two panels are still working. Also, the voltage of the panels remains the same but the current is cumulative. That is, three 12-volt panels will be at 12 volts but the current will be additive, or 30 amps.

The more current there is in a wire, the shorter that wire has to be before some of the current dissipates as heat, leaving you less current for charging the batteries. A heavier guage wire will retain more current over a longer distance, but it is harder to work with during the installation and it is more expensive.

For reference, we wired the panels on our old full-timing fifth in series, and that worked fine because we almost always parked in full sun and rarely had any kind of shade on the panels. However, we wired the panels on our sailboat in parallel because the mast and boom cast a huge moving shadow across the panels as the boat swung at anchor, so one or another of the panels was frequently knocked out of the system.

New Solar Panels – What Size?

Whether the panels were wired in series or in parallel, any new panels we added to our system would produce the same watts as the existing panel: 190 watts. Even if the new panels were bigger than 190 watts, they would match the lower wattage of the existing panel.

There weren’t many 190 watt 12 volt panels available, except the same model Go Power panel we already had on the roof, and their panel is very expensive.

Go Power 190 watt solar expansion kit

Instead, we got two Renogy 200 watt 12 volt panels, and these seem to be good quality. Because the new panels will drop down to 190 watts to match the existing panel in the system, this RV solar upgrade will give us 570 watts of total power (3 x 190).

570 watts is more than either our boat or our full-time trailer, so it should be more than enough!

Renogy 200 watt solar panel

As for the batteries, we don’t have room for more batteries, and the existing batteries haven’t died yet (to my surprise!). So, we’ve decided to hold off on swapping out the batteries until another season.

 

RV Solar Upgrade: Installation

The total cost of the solar power upgrade was about $480 which included:

The tools required to do this RV solar upgrade project were:

The installation was straight forward.

On the back of each panel — both the existing one on the roof and the two new ones — there is a junction box with two 10 AWG leads (positive and negative). They are about 18 inches long and have MC4 connectors on the ends.

Renogy solar panel junction box and MC4 connectors

Most solar panels have a junction box and short leads with MC4 connectors on the ends, one positive and one negative.

On the existing solar panel, the MC4 connectors at the ends of these cables were connected to two other cables that ran from the roof of the RV down to the solar charge controller inside the rig.

All of this cabling was invisible as you looked at the face of the solar panel on the roof because it was all underneath it. Also, beneath the solar panel, there were two holes in the roof where the cables went into the interior of the rig down to the solar charge controller.

Renogy solar panel MC4 wires and junction box

Most solar panels have a junction box and two leads with MC4 connectors on the ends.

Here is a rough diagram showing the solar panel with its junction box and two 10 AWG cables with their MC4 connectors. These connectors are attached to two MC4 connectors on the ends of a long length of 10 AWG cable that goes through a hole in the roof (the blue circle) down to the solar charge controller in the interior of the rig (not shown).

The holes in the roof are actually under the panel, but this drawing shows the holes being above the panel so the diagram isn’t too messy!

Diagram of single solar panel with MC4 connectors on an RV roof

Our factory installed solar panel had two leads, positive and negative, that attached to wires coming up through the roof from the charge controller inside the rig. The holes in the roof (blue circles) are actually located under the panel.

We purchased two 3-to-1 branch adapters that would make it super easy to wire the three panels in parallel. The adapters look like bird feet with three toes (one for each solar panel), and a leg that would attach to the cable that went through the roof into the rig.

One adapter would be connected to the positive side of the system and one would be connected to the negative side. That is, all three positive leads, one from each panel, would connect to the three toes on one bird foot (the “positive” 3-to-1 branch connector) and all three negative leads, one from each panel, would connect to the three toes on the other bird foot (the “negative” 3-to-1 branch connector).

We also bought two 6′ lengths of 10 AWG cable with MC4 connectors pre-installedat each end. These were essentially extension cables that would connect to the MC4 connectors on the cables coming up through the roof from the charge controller down in the rig.

They were color coded, so the red one would connect to the positive cable coming up through the roof and the black one would connect to the negative cable coming up from the charge controller.

Fortunately, Genesis Supreme had labeled the cables coming up from the charge controller so we could tell which one was positive and which was negative.

MC4 solar panel wire connectors for an RV installation

We got two 3-to-1 branch connector (“bird feet”) and one 6′ pair of 10 AWG cables with MC4 connectors pre-installed on the ends.

Here is a rough diagram showing the layout of the cables. As in the previous diagram, the two blue circles are the holes in the roof which are actually located beneath the original solar panel in the middle. However, for simplicity in showing how the cables connect, the “holes in the roof” are located above the panels in this diagram and the 6′ extension cables are really short!

Diagram of RV solar power upgrade from 1 panel to 3 panels in parallel

Our 2 new panels would be wired in parallel with the existing panel, connecting all the positives together on one 3-to-1 branch connector and all the negatives on the other. The extension cables would connect to the wires coming up through the holes in the roof (blue circles). Note that the holes in the roof are actually under the center panel and the 6′ extension cables are drawn super short.

Our mission was to :

  1. Lift the existing solar panel so we could access the cabling underneath
  2. Disconnect the MC4 connectors on the panel’s leads from the MC4 connectors on the cables that come up from the solar charge controller in the rig
  3. Reconnect the cables coming from the charge controller to the new 6′ “extension” cables
  4. Connect the “extension” cables to the legs of the 3-to-1 branch connectors which would designate one as “positive” and one as “negative”
  5. Connect each panel’s positive cable to the “positive” 3-to-1 branch connectors
  6. Connect each panel’s negative cable to the “negative” 3-to-1 branch connectors

All of this would be done by snapping the MC4 connectors together, simply inserting one end into the other and pressing it together. So easy!

There’s a special tool for disconnecting MC4 connectors, but you can also disconnect them with your fingers by keeping the tab on one side depressed as you pull the two pieces apart.

Connecting MC4 connectors in an RV solar panel installation

MC4 connectors snap together.

To get at the cables under the existing Go power solar panel, Mark removed the hardened sealant that was covering each of the mounting brackets. He used a screwdriver but a narrow and rigid putty knife would work too.

Removing a Go Power solar panel from an RV roof

First step was to lift up the existing panel which required removing the sealant on the mounting bracket screws and then unscrewing the screws.

Then he unscrewed each of the screws holding the mounting brackets in place.

We bought a wonderful cordless power screwdriver last year that we BOTH absolutely LOVE! It makes screwing and unscrewing things infinitely easier than doing it by hand, and it’s much less bulky than a cordless drill.

Ryobi cordless screwdriver
Removing a Go Power solar panel from an RV roof

Unscrewing the screws.
The cordless screwdriver is one of our favorite tools!

He unscrewed all four feet and then lifted up one side to get at the cables underneath.

Changing the wiring under a Go Power solar panel under an RV roof

Working under the existing solar panel.

A positive (red) and negative (black) cable came up through the roof from the interior of the rig where they were connected to the solar charge controller and were connected directly to the solar panel. Mark disconnected each cable from the solar panel and then reconnected them to the two 6′ extension cables we had purchased.

Changing the wiring under a solar panel on an RV roof

The positive and negative extension cables go between the 3-to-1 branch connectors and the cables coming up through the roof from the charge controller inside the rig.

Then he connected the extension cables to the “legs” of each of the two 3-to-1 MC4 branch connectors (bird feet) and connected the solar panel’s negative and positve leads to the “toes” of the 3-to-1 branch connectors.

RV solar panel MC4 connector wiring on an RV roof

The original panel (black leads going to the middle “toes”) and the solar charge controller (red and black extension cables going to the “legs”) are now wired into the 3-to-1 branch connectors. We ran into the rig to verify everything looked okay and we saw the float voltage of 13.5 volts on the charge controller display.

Next, we needed to get the two new Renogy solar panels onto the roof of the RV, place them on either side of the existing panel, and then connect their positive and negative leads to the positive and negative 3-to-1 branch connectors.

Before that, though, we needed to figure out how to get the panels up onto the roof which is 13.5 feet in the air! We opened the patio of the toy hauler and put a ladder on it. This was much more secure than carrying a heavy solar panel one handed up the ladder attached to the side of the rig!

Ladder roof access on a toy hauler RV patio

The most solid way to get the panels up to the roof was to put a ladder on the patio!

Lifting a solar panel onto an RV roof

Here comes the first one!

Once we got both panels up on the roof, we attached the MC4 connectors on the two new panels’ leads to the outer “toes” of the two 3-to-1 branch connectors, positive to positive and negative to negative.

Now all three panels were completely wired up in parallel.

Three solar panels wired with MC4 connectors on an RV roof

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The next step was to mount the solar panels on the roof.

The roof is just wide enough (it’s an 8.5′ “widebody” trailer) that we could place the three panels side by side, leaving enough space between them so we could walk beyond them to the far end of the rig.

First Mark screwed the original Go Power panel’s mounting brackets back into the roof.

Then we used the Renogy mounting Z brackets to mount the new Renogy solar panels. The Renogy mounting brackets came with very handy hex head self-tapping screws.

Self-tapping screws for installing a Renogy solar panel on an RV roof

Self-tapping screws. So easy!

Then Mark used a scratch awl to make a starter hole for the self-tapping screws. Pounding a nail in a little ways would have worked too.

Mounting an RV solar panel on the roof

Mark made a starter hole for the screws with a scratch awl.

Then he used a cordless drill with a hex head bit to screw them in all the way.

RV solar panel installation- attaching the solar panels to the roof

The mounting Z brackets got screwed into the roof.

Solar panel mounting brackets screw directly into the RV roof

Done.

Last of all, he used Dicor Self-Leveling Lap Sealant in a caulk gun to cover all the screws and seal all the edges of the mounting brackets. This will ensure that no water can find its way through the roof!

Sealing the holes in an RV roof after mounting a solar panel

Dicor Self-Leveling Lap Sealant seals the whole mounting bracket so water can’t leak in.

Dicor Lap Sealant on a solar panel mounting bracket

After the Dicor Lap Sealant had leveled out, it completely surrounded and covered the mounting bracket

Ta da! The finished product looked great!

RV solar upgrade cheap and easy with Go Power and Renogy

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I couldn’t believe how easy this project turned out to be. Of course, the hardest parts were already done for us: running the cables from the roof down into the interior of the rig, wiring up the solar charge controller and wiring up the inverter. All we had to do was add two more panels and wire them up with the handy MC4 connectors.

If you have purchased a rig that has a “starter” solar power system like the Go Power system on our toy hauler, it’s not difficult to upgrade it like we did so you have the maximum amount of solar panel wattage that the charge controller can accept.

One thing to consider before buying any solar gear, especially from an online retailer, is to buy each piece individually rather than in a big kit. The problem with a kit is that if one item in the kit doesn’t work and needs to be returned, online retailers, like Amazon, may require you to return the entire kit. If the failed element is a solar panel and you’ve already installed the other panels in the kit and they are working fine, it may be a hassle to get approval to return just the one broken panel. I’ve read of cases where the entire system had to be dismantled and reboxed and sent back. For that reason, we opted to buy each piece separately just in case.

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Further reading…

SOLAR POWER OVERVIEW and TUTORIAL

BATTERIES and BATTERY CHARGING SYSTEMS

LIVING ON 12 VOLTS

ARTICLES ABOUT OUR GENESIS SUPREME TOY HAULER

REFERENCES

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Where to See WILDFLOWERS (especially POPPIES) in Arizona 2023!

March 2023 — Arizona has received a glorious deluge of rain and snow this winter, and the rivers, streams and lakes are flowing fast and filling up quickly. Yay!

As if in celebration of this divine gift of a long drink for a thirsty land, many parts of the desert are now ablaze in shades of yellow as Arizona’s wild Mexican gold poppies pop their heads out of the ground and point their smiling faces towards the sun.

But where is the best place to see wildflowers — especially poppies! — in Arizona this spring?

Mexican Gold Poppies and California Poppies in Fields of Gold near Phoenix Arizona

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We had a roundabout opportunity to see the poppies when special friends of ours invited us to their winter digs in Apache Junction which is home to Lost Dutchman State Park, a gorgeous spot known for its springtime wildflower display.

The official reason for our visit was to get some troubleshooting help on our Onan 4000 gas generator which has been giving us all kinds of grief since our first night in the trailer last year.

So, what better way to make our sour generator “lemons” into sweet wildflower “lemonade” than to get the machine repaired and upgraded and then go play in the flowers?! (We’ll share the details about the generator, its repair and upgrade in another post).

But first, we had to get there — and on our way we saw the remnants of the recent March blizzard that had buried parts of northern Arizona in several feet of snow!

Winter storm clouds on a northern Arizona road

US-87 north of Strawberry still had plenty of snow on the ground.

As we drove into Apache Junction, the roads were still wet from yet another dose of life-giving rain, and the Superstitions rose up under stormy skies in the distance.

Storm clouds over the Superstition Mountains in Apache Junction Arizona

The Supestition Mountains — where we hoped to see wildflowers — looked impressive and imposing as we approached after a rain storm.

At a stop light in the middle of town, at the intersection of Meridian and Brown, we glanced to the right and our jaws dropped at the sight of a vast field of yellow and orange daisies. We quickly parked and jumped out of the truck to take pics.

What was this place and how did these flowers get here?

It turned out that this huge field is owned by a local farmer who works his land with vintage 1960s tractors and farm equipment. He planted this field of daisies and it attracts visitors from far and wide every spring when the field erupts in vibrant color.

Field of Daisies Apache Junction Arizona

A large back yard in Apache Junction is filled with yellow and orange daisies.

As gorgeous as that field was, we wanted to see true wildflowers. So, as soon as the generator repair was completed, we did a hike in Lost Dutchman State Park. Unfortunately, the famous yellow poppies weren’t blooming where we hiked.

We did find one small collection of poppies, though, and it was lovely. But it wasn’t quite what we had in mind.

Wildflowers Mexican Gold poppies Superstition Mountains

The poppies weren’t in their full glory at Lost Dutchman State Park just yet, but we did find a small patch.

Photographing poppies in Lost Dutchman State Park

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Even so, the Superstitions are glorious, and we got some satisfying pics of chain-link cholla cactus against the rugged mountain backdrop. But we were still in search of desert gold!

Chain link cholla cactus Superstition Mountains Arizona

A chain link cholla cactus in the Superstition Mountains..

Here’s a book about finding and photographing Arizona wildflowers that we just love:

We decided to take a drive on the Bush Highway, one of Central Arizona’s most scenic drives (blog post HERE).

The Bush Highway winds up and down and around the steep, rugged and gorgeous Sonoran Desert terrain, passing by lovely Saguaro Lake on its way.

We turned off at the Butcher Jones Recreation Area where there’s a small beach, and as cold and forbidding as the stormy and snowy mountain passes had been on our way here, this place was teeming with summertime beach activity.

Saguaro Lake Butcher Jones Beach Arizona

Saguaro Lake, a man-made lake on the Salt River, is lined with saguaro cactus!

People in bathing suits were drifting around on stand-up paddle boards and kayaks, and families were gathered around coolers on beach blankets and in camp chairs.

It was Spring Break and everyone was whooping it up!!

Butcher Jones Recreation Area Beach at Saguaro Lake Arizona

The Butcher Jones Recreation Area was hopping with happy spring breakers playing on the water.

But we were still on the hunt for massive blooms of poppies. Down at our feet we saw a beautiful bouquet of flowers poking up out of the gravel and sand.

Natural bouquet of beautiful wildflowers in Arizona

A natural bouquet of wildflowers blooms in the sand.

Another pocket of poppies was in full glory near the shore of the lake.

Mexican gold poppies at Saguaro Lake Butcher Jones Beach

We weren’t the only photographers to grab a pic of these poppies!

All of this was fantastic, and the excitement of the Spring Breakers was contagious, but we still weren’t seeing the poppy photo ops we’d hoped for.

We got back in the truck and drove another few miles north on the Bush Highway.

Suddenly, there it was, all around us, about halfway between the lake and US-87.

Mexican Gold Poppies and California Poppies near Saguaro Lake Arizona

Poppies!

The hillsides on either side of the highway were bursting with color, blanketed in vivid yellow poppies!

Mexican Gold Poppies on the Bush Highway in Arizona-2

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Hillsides covered with Mexican Gold poppies near Saguaro Lake Arizona

The desert comes alive.

On either side of the road as far as the eye could see, drivers had parked their cars on the dirt shoulder and people were getting out for a closer look at the spectacle.

Everyone was grinning, cell phone or camera in hand, and excited exclamations and comments filled the air. We all stared at the magnificent scenery in awe.

“Wow!”
“Incredible!”
“I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“Can you believe it?”

Mexican Gold Poppies and California Poppies near Saguaro Lake Arizona

Even though these poppies aren’t the kind that Dorothy walked through in the Wizard of Oz, I kept thinking of that refrain, “Poppies…poppies…poppies!”

We tip-toed between the flowers and found a dirt wash we could walk and were soon immersed in pretty yellow poppies.

Stop and smell the Mexican Gold poppies and California poppies near Saguaro Lake in Arizona

Stop and smell the flowers!

We’ve only seen vast fields of wildflowers where the flowers go on far into the distance a few times, by the side of I-40 in North Carolina (blog posts HERE), by a forest road near Cody Wyoming (see HERE) and at Cedar Breaks in Utah (HERE).

But this display was the biggest and boldest we’d ever seen. Fields of gold…and popping poppies!

21 721 Mexican Gold poppies and Calfironia poppies near Saguaro Lake Arizona

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Fields of Gold with Mexican Gold poppies and California poppies near Saguaro Lake

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Fields of Mexican gold poppies with Weaver's Needle in Arizona

On the Bush Highway, between US-87 and Saguaro Lake, there is stretch of about a mile or two where the rolling hills are covered in poppies right now.

We thought that these were Arizona poppies. After all, they were blooming in Arizona! But Arizona poppies bloom in July and this was mid-March.

Once we were back in our trailer that evening, we poked around online and discovered that these stunning flowers were Mexican Gold Poppies a subspecies of poppy closely related to the California Poppy (which is California’s state flower!).

Back in 1816, German physician and naturalist Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz (1793 – 1831) discovered the poppy genus in the San Francisco area.

Mexican Gold poppies

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Mexican Gold Poppies on the Bush Highway in Arizona

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Poppies in Arizona

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Poppies love dry desert soil and they bloom profusely when they get a long drink during the wintertime. They are sun worshippers too, opening up in bright sunlight and closing their petals tightly when the skies are overcast or gray (and at dawn and dusk which makes them hard to capture in a photo with a sunrise or sunset!).

Mexican Gold Poppies on Arizona Bush Highway

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On the fringes of the rolling hills of brilliant yellow, we found a few poppies standing side by side with other flowers.

Wildflowers smile up at the sun in Arizona

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And, of course, in other places in the desert, especially along the highways, we found lots of other beautiful wildflowers too.

Wildflower in the Sonoran Desert

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Wildflower in Apache Junction Arizona

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Wildflower in the Superstition Mountains Arizona

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Lupine wildflowers in Arizona

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If you visit the Sonoran Desert between late February and early April, you can catch these delightful flowers brightening up the landscape. These pics were taken just a few days ago on March 17, 2023, so if you are there now, be sure to take a drive to see this extraordinary display.

There are wild horses roaming in the area too, another special treat!

Wild horses and poppies on the Salt River in Arizona

The Wild Horses of the Salt River are a beloved herd.

Pup in the flowers

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More info about these poppies:

Other blog posts featuring wildflowers:

More blog posts from this part of Arizona:

Our most recent posts:

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Toy Hauler Life – What’s It Like Living in a Toy Hauler?

After living in our new Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler for about 5 months, we are absolutely loving this rig. Huray for toy hauler life!

When we first purchased this 5th wheel toy hauler, we wrote an overview with photos of a walk-through which you can see here — Genesis Supreme 28CRT Toy Hauler – Why We Chose It! Now, with a little more experience under our belts, we wanted to show you what it’s like living in a toy hauler, especially an open box floor plan like ours.

Toy hauler life - what's it like to live in a toy hauler RV?

What’s it like to live in a toy hauler?

Living in a toy hauler is different than other RV lifestyles, not only because of the big open garage space, ramp door and the ability to bring additional motorized vehicles along for the ride, but because of the back patio — a game changer! If you are considering getting one or are just curious about what it’s like living in a toy hauler, this page will give you a few things to think about and explain why we like ours so much.

A Toy hauler patio transforms RV life

Nevermind the garage and all the things it offers…
We’ve found the patio on our toy hauler totally transforms the interior of our RV!

Toy Hauler Pros and Cons

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in a toy hauler, like there are with every type of RV. Here are some of the biggest advantages of toy hauler life:

Toy Hauler Pros:

Water: The fresh water tank is usually very big. 100 gallons is typical but 160 gallons isn’t unusual.

Gas: Because toy haulers are built to haul gas powered toys, there’s usually a gas station onboard complete with a gas tank beneath the floor of the rig and a gas nozzle on the side to fill the toys. This makes it easy (and typical) for toy haulers to sport onboard gas generators that seamlessly tie into the gas tank. Our gas tank is 40 gallons, and I believe most toy haulers have a 30-50 gallon tank. However, some of the major brands don’t list the gas tank sizes on their websites.

Patio: The ramp door on most modern toy haulers converts into a rear 8′ x 8′ patio. Some toy haulers have a side patio too.

Beds: The powered Happijac bunks that come on most toy haulers in the rear of the garage have a queen mattress on the top bunk and a queen or full size “mattress” on the bottom bunk, plenty of room for kids or guests. The “mattress” on the bottom bunk is actually two loveseats laid flat that can be raised up to face each other.

Happijac bunk beds in the rear of a toy hauler RV

The top bunk is a queen size and the bottom bunk is a full size. The bottom bunk also becomes two loveseats that face each other.

Toy Hauler Cons:

Decor: Many toy haulers make me feel like I’m in a sports bar. All we’d need to top it off would be a keg, some munchies and the big game on TV!

Furniture: You may not want or need the lower Happijac bunk convertible sofas or the factory supplied heavy moveable table(s) that go between the recliners and between the rear sofas. However, they generally come standard with every toy hauler.

Kitchen: To fit everything into a modest length rig, the kitchen often takes a big hit. Pantries and counter space are reduced or virtually eliminated.

Storage: A toy hauler has less storage per linear foot than a traditional fifth wheel because you can’t have cabinetry on the lower part of the garage walls.

Setup/Breakdown: If you use a toy hauler to haul a toy, loading and unloading it plus dealing with the tie-downs takes time during setup and breakdown.

Rear Wall: Because the ramp door can’t have a window, the back of the garage is a big black wall when the ramp door is closed. If the trailer has a side patio, that creates another big dark wall when it’s closed.

Dirt: If you haul an ATV or UTV, dirt and/or mud will be tracked into the garage.

Gas Fill: Maneuvering a long toy hauler at a gas station to fill the gas tank can be a challenge, especially if the gas fill intake is at the rear end of the rig.

Putting gas in the tank of a toy hauler (Genesis Supreme)

“Fill ‘er up!”
The far back end of our toy hauler is at the gas pump here. There must be room ahead of the gas pump for the whole truck and trailer…

Enclosed Garage vs. Open Box Toy Haulers

There are two basic layouts for toy haulers: a “separate enclosed garage” where the garage is separated from the living space by a wall with a door, and an “open box” floor plan where the garage space converts into living space using moveable furniture. There are big trade-offs when you choose one layout over the other.

Enclosed garages are much more common in fifth wheel toy haulers and open box floor plans are much more common in travel trailer toy haulers.

Here is the floor plan for our 33′ long open box fifth wheel toy hauler with its 16′ garage compared to a 44′ long separate enclosed garage floor plan (a 2023 Keystone Raptor 415) that has a 15′ garage.

When you unload the toys from our open box toy hauler, the whole trailer becomes 33′ of 100% living space. In contrast, you don’t need to unload anything from the 44′ enclosed garage toy hauler to get 29′ of dedicated living space.

Genesis Supreme 28CRT 5th wheel toy hauler floor plan only

2022 Genesis Supreme 28CRT 5th wheel toy hauler floor plan
33′ long trailer with a 16′ garage.

2023 Keystone Raptor 415 Toy Hauler 44' long with 15' garage

Keystone Raptor 415 5th wheel toy hauler floor plan
44′ long trailer with a 15′ garage

Here are some of the tradeoffs between open box and enclosed garage toy haulers:

Dirt: A separate enclosed garage keeps all the dirt related to the toy(s) in the garage. An “open box” style layout brings the dirty muddy toy right into your living room!

Overall Length: A separate enclosed garage adds 10-15 feet to the length of an ordinary fifth wheel. At the back end of most toy hauler garages the last 18 inches of the floor is ramped. So, if you want your vehicle to ride level and not have two wheels heading downhill, you must add 18 inches to the overall garage length you need. Designers reduce the living area to keep their rigs under 50′ long, but almost all fifth wheel toy haulers with separate garages are over 40′ in length, nose to tail. An open box design allows for the overall length to be as little as 33′. When towing, a 33′ trailer is much easier to maneuver than one that’s well over 40′.

Garage Length: An open box trailer can offer a longer garage in a shorter overall trailer length. Whereas most enclosed garages top out at 13-15 feet in a trailer that is 38-46′ long, a shorter 33-34′ open box trailer can have a 16′ garage. At the long end of open box floor plans, one 44′ open box design has a 26′ long garage! That’s a heckuva lot of room for toys or for indoor party space with friends on rainy days or late at night.

Comfort and Storage: Separating the garage and living area means that both spaces are dedicated to their individual purposes. This allows the living space to have lots of built-ins and be more comfortable and attractive. For a given garage length, an enclosed garage rig has a lot more storage space than an open box design because the garages can’t have any lower cabinetry and in an open box design half of the rig’s length is the garage.

Single Overnights: An enclosed garage can be filled to the brim without impacting the usability of the rest of the rig. If you pull over at a rest area or stay just one night in an RV park and don’t feel like unloading the toys, you can still be comfortable in the rig. With an open box design your living space is gone once the toy(s) are loaded inside. The only way to get your living room back is to unload the toy(s). That isn’t possible or desireable in a rest area and it’s unnecessary extra work if you’re in transit to a distant destination and aren’t planning to use the toy(s) during a one or two night stay in an RV park or campground on the way there.

Tie-down Rings: The garage has tie-down rings and table pedestal supports built into the floor. With a separate garage, these toe-stubbers aren’t in your living room. However, in an open box design, they are. You can cover them with a carpet, but that is yet another thing that needs to be set up or put away each time you travel.

Bottom line: How do you plan to use the rig and the garage? A separate garage room can be used for anything — kids’ room, office, workshop, yoga room, art studio, storage, party room — but it will be a smaller space requiring a longer trailer. An open box offers an open floor plan with a cavernous living area that has a kitchen at one end, a patio at the other, and portable furniture throughout. However, if you’re hauling a toy, the living room will need to be set up and broken down every time you travel, and your toy(s) will bring dirt in with them.

An Open Box Flexible Floor Plan is Fun!

We love our 33′ long open box Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler because our 9′ long Polaris RZR 900 (the reason for getting a toy hauler) fits in it well and the trailer is very maneuverable to tow and park.

Even though this trailer isn’t cushy in the way that our Hitchhiker fifth wheel was, we have found the flexible floor plan is a lot of fun. We set it up differently depending on where we are, where the views are and how long we’ll stay.

Factory Provided Furniture We Don’t Use

Like many toy hauler owners, we removed all the moveable pedestal tables that came with the rig (ours had three). The tabletops for these tables are very heavy, and stowing the tabletops and the poles for traveling was awkward.

Also like many other toy hauler owners, we don’t use the opposing sofas that make up the bottom bunk in the Happijac bunk bed and we haven’t used the lower bunk for anyone to sleep on either.

We do use the lower bunk for storage, however. There is a 6 inch gap between the two bunks when they are flush against each other, just enough to slide in a folding table onto the lower bunk. However, if the items stored there are not secured and you go down a steep descent, things can slide off. We live in a hilly area and face a 150 yard long 25% descent every time we leave home, and we’ve had a folding table slide off the lower bunk in its raised position and land on the roof of the RZR side-by-side.

When we are set up for camping, we keep the bunk beds raised up to the ceiling so we have unencumbered floor space underneath. The upper bunk can make a fantastic napping spot, though, especially when the ramp door is open. It’s like being in a big wide comfy hammock!

Toy hauler upper bunk is good for napping

Mark and Buddy snuggle in for an afternoon nap.

 

Toy Hauler Fun – Bring Your Own Furniture!

So, with all that furniture not being used and the powered bunk beds raised to their Up position (allowing us to move around freely underneath), here is what the floor plan looks like:

2022 Genesis Supreme 28CRT 5th wheel toy hauler floor plan with moveable furniture and Happijac bunk beds removed.

2022 Genesis Supreme 28CRT 5th wheel toy hauler actual floor layout
(i.e., it doesn’t show the raised bunk beds or the moveable furniture).

We replaced the factory-provided pedestal tables with two small folding tables that can be set to dining table height or coffee table height.

This gives each of us a “desk” or we can place them side by side to make a larger table. We can also put one or both at coffee table height if we have company. Sometimes we leave one stowed on the lower bunk and bring out just one folding table if we’re not staying very long.

We also got two small ottomans that have a drawer and a tray flip top. This gives us each a personal “junk drawer” and storage space for small items.

Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler alternative chair layout ramp door closed

This is a typical layout we use if we’re not staying long. We share a table between us and use the small ottomans (trays up) to set drinks and snacks on.

Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler living room

Here we have both “desks” set up and the ottomans become footstools
(the Eurochair foot rests aren’t very comfortable).

When we travel, we spend a lot of time on our laptops processing our photos, and having desks is fantastic.

Our Hitchhiker fifth wheel had a tiny built-in desk, but it was so small we never used it. Instead, we always had the laptops in our laps. How nice it is to have our laptops on a table along with a pen and paper, if needed, and a snack or a drink!

Buddy likes to hang out on the sofa. He loves to watch the Outdoor Channel!

Dog looks out the window of an RV toy hauler

Buddy keeps an eye on things from the sofa.

Last summer we made a foldable perch for Buddy’s dog bed so he could look out the rear window comfortably and not have to stand on the sofa to see out.

Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler ramp door closed

We built an experimental perch for Buddy’s dog bed by the rear window last summer (back left corner).

Once we got home, we ordered a large storage ottoman bench that is the perfect size and height for Buddy to sit or lie on and look out a rear window. The fabric even has a travel motif! We didn’t install the legs that come with it because that would make it too high for the window. As a bonus, this storage ottoman has a flip up lid and a large interior which gives us a huge storage locker!

Storage ottoman bench for dog window seat

A window seat for Buddy with storage for us!

A window seat with storage for a dog in a toy hauler RV

On watch…

You may think we went a little crazy with the storage ottomans, but we had two in our fifth wheel trailer that we loved. We used them to replace the chairs that came with the dinette (blog post about that here). They are very handy because you can sit on them, put things on them and put things inside them!

Our most common layout is to place one chair and table opposite the sofa and the other one towards the back of the rig. This gives each of us plenty of space.

Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler ramp door closed

Our typical setup.
A slipcover on the black loveseat lightened and softened the decor a little bit
(it’s available here — I think that’s Buddy’s cousin in their ad photo!)

If the views are spectacular, we like to face them.

Room with a view in Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler

Room with a View.

Unfortunately, there are huge divets with raised rims in the floor where the factory-provided table pedestals attach, and those big bumps as well as the D-ring tie-down attachment points in the floor get in the way when we move our furniture around. The D-rings are necessary equipment, but hopefully we can find a way to remove the five metal supports in the floor that hold the table pedestals we aren’t using. We have some ideas…

Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler patio open no screen

Bright and airy with the patio open.

The Patio is a Game Changer!

The biggest surprise for us was how totally awesome it is to have a patio. It has been a game changer for us. We would have LOVED having a patio during all those years we spent living in an RV!

Toy hauler patio overlooking a stream in the woods

For us, the toy hauler patio has completely changed the way we live our RV life.

 

Ramp Door = Patio Floor!

We have a ramp door made by Lippert that is not too heavy. I can open and close it myself although it takes some effort. Mark can do it alone quite easily, and for the two of us together it’s a breeze.

MorRyde makes a ramp door that is so lightweight it takes just one finger to raise or lower it and it can hold its position partway open as well. Quite a few toy hauler brands have these cool ramp doors but Genesis Supreme trailers do not.

Genesis Supreme toy hauler ramp door and RLT mascot

Our ramp door is heavy but not unmanageable, even for one moderately strong person like me.

At first we weren’t sure exactly how and when we would use the patio, and after our first afternoon of totally loving it, we had a bad experience with it overnight.

Most toy haulers have an accordion door system that can close out the elements out of the rig’s interior when the patio is open. There are windows in those doors so you can choose to block out the hot or cold temps with glass or allow the breezes to flow through the doors with the screens.

Vinyl Patio Screen

Our trailer is a lower end model, so instead of accordion doors, it came with a vinyl screen that has mesh “windows” for bug-free fresh air flow. The screen rolls down from the ceiling.

Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler Vinyl screen and patio open

A vinyl screen rolls down from the ceiling. It has mesh windows in the upper half that allow fresh breezes to flow through the rig. There are vinyl flaps that close these windows if the weather takes a turn for the worse.

On our first night we left the patio open. The vinyl screen was in place, fully zipped closed with the bottom resting on the floor. By midnight the entire rig was filled with huge ugly moths that had crawled in on the floor underneath the vinyl screen because there is no seal there.

Talk about a rude awakening. It was like a scene out of a horror movie as we jumped around the rig swatting the walls like mad and shrieking (me)!

After that, we never left the patio open at night again, and we soon stopped using the vinyl screen all together because it is cumbersome and time consuming to set up.

Toy hauler RV ramp door closed and vinyl screen lowered

The vinyl screen is lowered and zipped closed (the ramp door is also closed).
Here you can see 4 of the 5 the toe-stubbing table pedestal attachment points for the factory supplied tables that came with the rig (and that we don’t use).

Toy hauler patio screen rolled up

Vinyl screen rolled up.

Not only does the vinyl screen require rolling/unrolling two large 8′ x 4′ panels (which are held against the ceiling with snap ties) but three zippers (two sides and the middle) must be zipped or unzipped from ceiling to floor.

Once the screen is in place, you are either inside or outside and you have to unzip the middle zipper to get from one area to the other. Most important, even with the mesh screen “windows,” air flow is restricted and the see-through mesh only goes from the ceiling to waist height. From waist height to the floor it’s black vinyl. In contrast, the more upscale accordion doors on higher end units have glass windows on both top and bottom, bringing lots of light in.

Let the Breezes Flow!

However, if we simply open the patio door and leave the vinyl screen rolled up against the ceiling, the interior of the rig is completely transformed. We open both the front door and the patio door, and any stray bugs that wander by fly in one door and out the other. This wouldn’t work in a buggy area, but the areas where we travel in the West have few bugs during the day.

The patio extends the floor space of the rig by another 8′ and you can wander freely from inside to outside. We tend not to sit out on the patio, but we love being inside and having all that fresh air and nature right there.

Toy hauler living with the patio open

Out on the patio it can be hot in the sun and blowy in the wind and impossible to see a laptop screen.
Sitting inside with the patio open, however, it feels like we’re sitting on a covered deck.

Genesis Supreme 28CRT open box toy hauler

It took us a while to figure out how to make the best use of the patio, but after missing out on a few campsites where it would have been fabulous, we realized just how transformative the patio can be!

Patio Rails

Most toy haulers come with a complete patio kit that includes the accordion doors and railings that go around the patio so you don’t fall off. Our patio rails were an option that the first buyer sprang for, but in hindsight they aren’t entirely necessary for the way we use the patio.

Our patio rails are hinged on the outer walls and roll open like two large doors. Once completely open to the outer edges, they get extended to reach the far corners of the patio and then they unfold again, creating a 3-sided rail system around the perimeter of the patio.

Patio rails closed on a toy hauler

In the stowed position, the folded patio rails rest against each other in the back of the trailer.

Toy hauler patio deployed on an open box floor plan

The patio rails roll open until they are aligned with the outer edges of the patio floor.

The railings are easily clamped to the patio floor along the outer edges, and the overall effect is an attractive and sturdy fence system. There’s a gate at the far end so you can step (or jump) down to the ground.

Trailer manufacturers provide big heavy stair systems for patios, but we didn’t want to deal with storing something like that. So, we bought a 16 inch tall lightweight plastic folding step stool to help get up and down. Of course, depending on how level or unlevel the ground is, the patio floor may be very high off the ground or quite close to it. We haven’t used that step stool all that often, but it’s nice to have along just in case.

Over time, we realized that we just weren’t sitting out on the patio the way we anticipated. We were happy to stay inside but feel the cool air or warm sun coming in the back end of the trailer. So, we began simply rolling the patio rails out along the two outer edges of the patio and leaving it at that. Since we weren’t hanging around on the patio itself, we didn’t risk falling off!

Toy hauler RV patio with rails partially set up

The patio rails can be extended to the far corners of the floor and then unfolded further to fence in the end of the patio, but we often leave them just like this so the views from the interior are unobstructed.

Toy hauler patio without the patio rails

The patio rails don’t need to be extended and set up all the way.

Some folks like the patio rails because their furry friends can sit outside on the patio while still being contained without being tied up. One caveat: the floor of the patio gets very hot in the summer sun — too hot for bare feet or puppy paws. We throw a mat down so Buddy can enjoy the patio too.

Many toy haulers have an awning over the patio but ours doesn’t. We’ve found that in the summer months it’s best to orient the rig so the patio gets the cooler morning sun but is shaded by the rig itself in the afternoon. Likewise, when we’ve taken it on winter trips, we’ve placed the rig so the patio gets the afternoon sun, making it possible to open it up for a few hours.

Enjoying the view from a toy hauler RV patio

Buddy enjoys the morning sun…

A toy hauler patio is great for dogs!

…and a little shade too!

Although it’s really tempting to buy a set of folding chairs and a folding table just for the patio, we haven’t done that yet. When we want to sit outside, we’ve found it’s just as easy to drag the Euro chair recliners onto the patio as it is to set up camp chairs. We’ve been putting our old camping chairs out on the ground for sitting outside down there.

For us, the jury is still out on the chairs in general. I’ve thought replacing the Euro chairs with good quality zero gravity chairs with some really cushy cushions. We’ll see!

Loading and Unloading the Side-by-side

Driving a Polaris RZR UTV into a fifth wheel toy hauler (Genesis Supreme 28CRT)

In she goes!.

Although it was super intimidating at first, loading the RZR is not hard. We put down rubber mats under each wheel and that’s what Mark aims for as he drives in.

We use Cargo Buckle retractable ratchet straps to hold the RZR in place, and those are worth their weight in gold.

Back in our fifth wheel days when we towed the side-by-side behind the fiver on a flatbed trailer, we used to mess with traditional ratchet straps but they never held the RZR totally securely. We’d have to stop driving to check and tighten them and they chafed through quite often. Then Mark found the Cargo Buckles, and tying down the RZR became a breeze. (I’ll be writing more about those soon).

The Cargo Buckle retractable ratchet straps worked so well on our flatbed trailer that we got another set for the toy hauler. These have made it incredibly easy to load and unload the RZR.

Driving a side-by-side UTV into a toy hauler RV

Mark aims for the rubber mats on the floor (they are there to protect the flooring)
Notice the table pedestal support holes in the floor (one rubber mat can’t even be flush to the floor), and notice the small storage ottomans and other gear has been stowed against the wall.

 

What’s It Like When There’s a Toy in the Garage?

For us, one of the most important features in an RV is that when it is fully loaded for traveling and the slides are in, you can still make and eat a meal as well as use the bathroom and sleep. That way, if we end up at a rest area or truck stop overnight, we can still be somewhat comfortable.

This is not possible in every toy hauler, and it is not possible in every other kind of RV either. However, the Genesis Supreme 28CRT floor plan works well this way as long as the toy is around 10′ or less in length.

We place the Euro recliner chairs side by side in front of the side-by-side facing into the kitchen. This gives us a place to sit while also leaving enough open area to move around the kitchen and use the sink and stove.

Genesis Supreme toy hauler with the side-by-side UTV RZR loaded

Looking towards the back of the trailer, everything fits, even the bike.

toy hauler with the side-by-side UTV RZR loaded

It’s a tight squeeze but it works. Note that the flip-up sofa is flipped up against the slideout wall with the window, and two folding step stools are tucked in behind a metal bar on the underside of the sofa.

If our side-by-side were longer it would still work, but the Euro chairs might have to be stowed in the hallway that goes to the bedroom instead. This would be fine as long as you didn’t plan to sit in them at all.

Obviously, lots of people travel with their RVs and never overnight in places where they can’t open their slideouts or unload their toys, but it’s something to consider if you travel by the seat of your pants the way we do.

Toy hauler kitchen with the side-by-side UTV RZR loaded

Full access to everything in the kitchen.

Room to maneuver in Toy hauler kitchen with the side-by-side UTV RZR loaded

Sometimes we have to turn the bike wheel a little to get into the lower drawers.

What Toys to Bring?

Last summer we traveled with one mountain bike and the RZR. Before we bought the trailer, I thought there would be enough space for two bikes and the RZR, but once we started working out exactly how we would load the garage, I discovered two bikes would be too tight. So, we took just one bike and loaded it in and out of the trailer at every campsite.

Buddy loves running with our bikes on forest roads and trails, but it wasn’t the same going out without both of us together. So, the bike never really got used.

Now that we’ve lived in the toy hauler for a few months, I’m not so sure I’d want to load and unload two bikes and a side-by-side every time we set up camp anyway. Perhaps a longer trailer would make it possible to stow two bikes until they were wanted.

A bike rack on the back of the trailer wouldn’t work because of the ramp door. So, for all those reasons we won’t have any bikes with us this summer, and I think life will be simpler.

There’s a fine line between taking everything you could ever want along with you in an RV versus being comfortable day to day because you are willing to live without a few things and you’re not crowded out of house and home by all your stuff.

I devised a way to tie the bike to the sofa when it was in its flipped up stowed position against the wall and also clamp it to two D-rings in the floor using rope and two caribiners. The bike was rock solid when we traveled but it was a tight squeeze to get to the back of the trailer if we needed to.

Because of that, we learned to stow the most important daily items in the forward cabinets so they were easy to reach when we were in transit and all loaded up!

What About the Dirt?

Having a RZR in our living space is definitely dirtier than not having one. However, it’s more manageable than I expected. We sweep out the garage before loading the side-by-side and after unloading it. We don’t have a carpet so it’s easy to sweep the vinyl floor. On our next adventure we’re bringing a portable vacuum too.

In reality, when it’s muddy, Buddy brings about as much mud in on his paws as he runs in and out all day long as the RZR brings in on its wheels when we travel from place to place, and the RZR doesn’t bring any dirt into our bed!

So, if dirt is something that would keep you from considering an open box toy hauler yet you have a dog(s) that loves to run around outside, perhaps reconsider. You’ll be cleaning up mud and dirt regardless.

The toy hauler has a fresh water spigot on the outside and 100 gallons of fresh water, so we can rinse off the RZR or at least wipe it down before loading it inside.

Also, if the RZR gets really filthy, we can always drive it to a car wash. We haven’t done that yet, but there have been times when we’ve thought about it!

Overall Impressions

We love this rig. It is just right for part-time travels, and the flexibility of the floor plan and ability to bring the RZR on our adventures is everything we wanted.

In my first post about this toy hauler, before we’d taken it out on a four month journey, I was quite certain I’d never consider an open box floor plan for full-time living. In hindsight, though, we’ve found it actually makes for a very cool home on wheels and could work quite well for full-timing.

In that case, I’d look at a longer rig, perhaps 36′ to 38′ end to end. That would give us a bigger kitchen and/or bigger bedroom. I’d also hunt around for super comfortable and lightweight recliners, and I’d make sure I bought a rig with a light colored decor!

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References:

Genesis Supreme 5th Wheel Toy Haulers – Ours is the 28CRT

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Dead Horse Ranch State Park + Tuzigoot and Clarkdale

February 2023 – Back in mid-November we spent the better part of a week at Dead Horse Ranch State Park in central Arizona and used it as a home base to visit Tuzigoot, Clarkdale and the Arizona Copper Museum. We’d known about this state park for many years but this was our first time visiting. What a delightful stay we had!

DEAD HORSE RANCH STATE PARK – LAGOONS and TRAILS

The first thing we noticed after we got our campsite set up was the trio of beautiful lagoons that are the centerpiece of the park.

Rich fall colors at Dead Horse Ranch State Park Arizona

Autumn splendor at Dead Horse Ranch State Park in central Arizona.

The name “Dead Horse Ranch State Park” seems strange, but it has a fun origin.

In the late 1940s the Ireys family of Minnesota was looking for a ranch to buy in the southwest, and they visited several prospective properties. At one of them the kids noticed a dead horse. After two days of driving all over the dirt roads of Arizona ranch hunting, the dad asked the kids which one they liked best. “The one with the dead horse!” was the reply!

The Ireys named their ranch, “Dead Horse Ranch” and they lived and worked on the property until the 1970s. When Arizona acquired the ranch, the Ireys made retaining the name one of the conditions of the sale. Dead Horse Ranch State Park officially opened on June 1, 1977.

The lagoons in Dead Horse State Park Arizona

The lagoons are a highlight at Dead Horse Ranch State Park.

Many people think that the desert regions in Arizona don’t have four seasons. However, that’s not entirely true, despite winters being warmer than elsewhere!

There is a distinct Fall season, complete with brilliant autumn colors, that arrives about a month or two later than the northern states, and Spring brings lots of wildflowers. Summer is, well, a lot like being in an oven!

Trees near the lagoons at Dead Horse State Park Arizona

Under the golden arches.

We found some wonderful hiking trails that meandered under the canopy of trees that grow alongside the Verde River. Buddy loved exploring these trails ahead of us and then dashing back to tell us what he’d found!

Fast dog sprints in the woods

“You wouldn’t believe what’s up there!”

TUZIGOOT NATIONAL MONUMENT

As comfortable as we were in our spacious campsite inside Dead Horse Ranch State Park, we ventured beyond the park’s borders a few times too.

Tuzigoot National Monument, a site of ancient Indian ruins that were built by the Sinagua people in between 1050 and 1380 AD, is quite close by.

The ruins consist of a series of rooms defined by stone walls that were built onto a hillside.

Tuzigoot National Monument in Arizona

Tuzigoot National Monument is a 110 room ancient Indian ruin.

It is believed there were 87 first story rooms and 23 second story rooms in this community and that it housed about 225 people. The rooms were terraced and entry and exit from each room was through the roof.

Tuzigoot National Monument in Arizona

Tuzigoot’s rooms are all adjacent. It is thought the residents climbed in and out of each room by a hole in the roof!

A paved path took us to the top of the hill where there were 360 degree panoramic views, and we could look down at the rooms of the ruins below us.

View from top of Tuzigoot National Monument

The hill that Tuzigoot is built on has panoramic views that go on forever.

Heading back down to a lower level, we were able to go inside a room that had been reconstructed with posts and beams to show what it was like when these rooms were occupied and were enclosed with full height walls and ceilings.

Inside Tuzigoot National Monument ancient Indian ruins

A reconstructed room interior.

Mark noticed a mortar and pestle up on a ledge.

Mortar and pestle at Tuzigoot national Monument

This mortar and pestle were originally found at the site.

As with most Indian ruins in Arizona, lots of incredible artifacts have been found in these ruins. A museum on site houses a large collection of pottery that has been carefully pieced back together again. What a treasure trove of handiwork made by the ancients!

Pottery found at Tuzigoot National Monument in Arizona

Pottery found in the Tuzigoot ruins are on display in the museum.

CLARKDALE and COPPER MINING

On another day we took a drive over to the village of Clarkdale. We’d bypassed this town of about 4,200 people dozens of times over the years and never stopped in to see what was there. It is tucked away off the main highway but has a delightful main street and downtown area.

Despite its small size, it is home to one of Arizona’s most famous museums: The Arizona Copper Art Museum which is housed in the old high school building.

Clarkdale High School now the Copper Museum in Clarkdale Arizona

The old Clarkdale High School is now the Arizona Copper Art Musuem.

In years past, Arizona school kids learned about the “5 C’s” that made their state special: Copper, Cattle, Cotton, Citrus and Climate.

The Arizona Copper Art Museum celebrates the first C and is situated in the heart of the old Verde Mining District where the twin mining camps of Jerome and Clarkdale grew up around the United Verde Mine which was owned by William A. Clark.

Bucket of copper ore at the Copper Museum in Clarkdale Arizona

Copper was a huge industry in the Verde Valley at the turn of the last century
as it is elsewhere in Arizona today.

The United Verde Mine and Clarkdale mining camp were just one part of William Clark’s extraordinary holdings. He was a man of vision, energy and drive, and it seems no project was too big or difficult for him to take on.

Besides the copper mine and mining camps he’d built in the Verde Valley, he owned three mines and two banks in Montana, controlled several newspapers in Montana and Utah and owned a sugar plantation in California!

Before he built the United Verde Mine in Jerome, the copper vein there was considered too remote to ever be profitable. However, William Clark managed to make $60 million from his mine! Yet getting the ore out of the ground was just part of the challenge. He also needed to build a railroad to get the ore from the mine in Jerome to the smelter in Clarkdale and from there out to the world. So he built a railroad.

Needing a place to service his trains, he bought a ranch in Nevada and brought in employees to live and work there. That little train maintenance camp and yard is now the city of Las Vegas…in Clark County, Nevada!

And if all that weren’t enough, he then became a US Senator for Montana.

Outside the Copper Museum in Clarkdale Arizona

William Clark was a busy and massively successful man. We kinda like the quieter life!

We had fun roaming around the outside of the museum where we found a large bell, a barrel of monkeys and a huge chess board.

The museum wasn’t open yet, however, so we decided to return to explore the inside of the museum another time.

Barrel of Monkeys at the Arizona Copper Museum in Clarkdale AZ

Who are these guys??

Chess game in Clarkdale Arizona

Buddy ponders his next move.

Clarkdale has a pretty park shaded by several huge trees, and these trees were all in the peak of fall color. Every time the wind blew, a flurry of vibrant yellow leaves would flutter to the ground. A blanket of yellow leaves surrounded the base of each tree.

Autumn color in Clarkdale Arizona

Golden leaves were falling everywhere, leaving a thick blanket of yellow on the ground.

Down one street we discovered Saint Cecilia’s Mission Catholic Church, and we learned later that mass is held here in Latin! If you are visiting the area and want to experience a Latin mass, Saint Cecilia’s is the place to go!

St. Cecilia's Mission in Clarkdale, Arizona

Saint Cecilia’s Mission holds mass in Latin!

Down another street we came across a vintage gas station that is still intact and is a wonderful throwback to earlier times.

Classic historic gas station in Clarkdale Arizona

Clarkdale’s old gas station evokes an earlier era.

An old gas pump served many customers over the years.

Old gas pump at a historic gas station in Clarkdale Arizona

An old gas pump.

A woman came over to chat with us, and we found out she owns a 50% share of this gas station. She told us it was originally built in 1942 and it served gas right up until 2014.

At that time the government gave all gas stations an ultimatum: upgrade the underground tanks or they’ll be removed (for free). The station had been struggling against more modern competition out on the highway, so they opted to have the tanks removed.

Even though gas is no longer sold there, the original gas price sign was still advertising some very appealing prices!

Historic gas prices in Clarkdale Arizona

Old gas prices!

VERDE CANYON RAILROAD

Automobiles weren’t the only way to get around back in the day or even now. The Verde Canyon Railroad takes tourists out along William Clark’s original train tracks that he’d built to transport copper ore from his mine.

The Verde Canyon Railroad is a very popular train excursion that goes through some red rock scenery as it chugs through the Verde Valley, and they have lots of different specialty rides, from starlight rides to chocolate, wine and beer rides to fall color and spring flower rides and a magical ride at Christmas.

Again, we have wanted to do this train ride for a while, but they don’t allow pets, so this particular trip wasn’t the right time.

Verde Canyon Railway in Clarkdale Arizona

The Verde Canyon Railway takes tourists on the tracks that were built to haul copper ore.

VIOLETTE’S BAKERY

But we still got a train ride (of sorts)! In the heart of Clarkdale stands an antique train car that is now home to Violette’s Bakery. Violette specializes in French pastries along with specialty coffees, as well as yummy breakfasts and lunches. We stepped right up to the train car window and put in an order!

Violette's Bakery Cafe in Clarkdale Arizona

Violette’s Bakery is in an antique train car.

Buddy was delighted to order puppaccino. It totally made up for him not being allowed on the Verde Canyon train!

Puppaccino at Violette's Bakery Cafe in Clarkdale Arizona

Buddy orders his favorite treat.

Puppaccino!

Puppaccino!

We really enjoyed our few hours in Clarkdale and will get back another time to see the Copper Art Museum and take the Verde Canyon Railroad ride.

Street lamp in Clarkdale Arizona

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In the meantime, Dead Horse Ranch State Park was calling us back with its its lovely campground and beautiful lagoons wearing their Fall finest.

Dead Horse Ranch State Park Lagoon in Arizona

Fall color at Dead Horse Ranch State Park.

Fall colors at the Lagoon in Dead Horse Ranch State Park Arizona

View from the water’s edge at the lagoon.

RV camping at Dead Horse Ranch State Park Arizona

We enjoyed our stay at Dead Horse Ranch State Park — and we’ll be back!

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