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Our most recent airstreamy trip was to Prescott last weekend. I first called Point of Rocks RV park, but they wouldn’t allow us to bring our 3 dogs; they have a 2 dog maximum. So, I called Willow Lake RV park and they allowed us to bring the dogs. There aren’t many recent reviews for the Prescott RV parks, so we were hoping for the best. In our traditional last minute fashion, Matt and I decided to take Airstreamy out of town on Friday. Our 11 year wedding anniversary was on October 19th, which is why we decided it would be fun to get away. We got on the road around 9:30pm and arrived in Prescott around 11:30pm. The temperature was a crisp 40 degrees when we arrived; just what I wanted! Being a Phoenix native, cold weather is a welcome novelty.

I called the office when we arrived, as it was after hours. The night person then met us at the office and guided us to to our site. We didn’t have anyone on either of the neighboring sites, so that was nice. There isn’t a map of the RV park anywhere online (and we didn’t get on on-site) . We also didn’t get to choose our location in the park, but I was happy with the one we were given. If I had my choice, I would have liked one of the sites overlooking the granite dells, but they might not have been big enough for our 31 footer.

Here are some pics from the Willow Lake RV Park:

44 degrees in the morning on Saturday. Brrrrrrrrrr.

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Hat and cape weather! Yippee!

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There appears to be several long-term residents at Willow Lake RV Park. I only suspect that because of the patio set-ups on some and flat tires on others. Overall, the park seems to be pretty popular with all RVers.

This metal bus was pretty cool.

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One of the long-term set-ups we saw.

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Another vintage airstream (possibly our same year) was staying here.

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I didn’t notice this carved tree stump, but of course my hippy husband sees it.

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How’s that for some outside lighting. 😉

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Matt spotted an old 1960s Chevy van that he can’t stop talking about.

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Our first morning at the park, we slept in a bit, which happened to be a godsend! We had water start shooting out from under the kitchen sink when we were getting ready to leave. It was a super easy fix, but had we not been there, we likely would have come back to find a flooded mess. We didn’t end up heading into town until early afternoon. We decided to grab the dogs and get lunch. I had read about Raven Cafe on Yelp. We got there and saw a sign that said ‘No outside food or drink’, which Matt thought meant we couldn’t eat outside. I went inside to ask about sitting outside and they said that would be fine. There are 2 little tables out front, which are dog-friendly. Their upper patio isn’t dog-friendly because you have to walk the dogs through the restaurant, which is against health code.  Matt grabbed a table and I ordered us a tofu and veggie sandwich, burrito and some sweet potato fries. They serve Blue Sky natural soda, which was really good. We had many people stop and pet the dogs. Everyone seems to love dogs in Prescott!

Hank always draws the most attention because most people haven’t seen a red boston terrier before.

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Raven Cafe

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Downtown Prescott is so charming. The leaves were changing colors; it was magical.

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I love all the old buildings

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Falling leaves…the best!

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I bought 3 light-up blow mold holiday pieces from Deja Vu Antiques

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Love these AZ pieces. I have several of the cactus glasses from my grandma.

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Lala had to pose in front of her salon. 😉

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We happened upon a spooky house in downtown Prescott:

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Then, I found Christmas in Prescott! I bought lots of ornaments; I can’t pass up a good Christmas store…it’s an addiction, really.

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So many ornaments!

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We decided to  grab our anniversary dinner from Bin 239. I got an oven-roasted vegetable panini (sans cheese) and Matt got a wood-fired pizza. We were both really happy with our meals. We got back to the trailer and decided to hang up the new LED C9 bulbs that I bought at  target. Oh, and we set out our new friend, the halloween raccoon/bear. You’ll notice we don’t have an awning. Well, I thought my Prius was in park in our driveway a few months ago. But, I ended up hitting my car on the awning arm, while leaning down to grab my purse. Boo! We have the pieces to put it back together….just one of our many upcoming airstream projects.

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We’re making it a tradition to take a photo in front of the airstream at all our destinations. It will be fun to look back on all our adventures!

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Festive, aren’t we?

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Fake candlelight dinner (I forgot to bring real candles).

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We woke up early Sunday morning, ate breakfast in the trailer (with lots of coffee) and proceeded to hike to Willow Lake. It was more of a trail walk vs a hike, but there were some rocks to jump over. Here is an aerial of the RV park and it shows the proximity to the lake:

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Willow lake is so beautiful. He hiked up some boulders to a cute little bench and sat with the dogs for a while.

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After chilling at the lake for about an hour, we decided to gas up the truck for the ride home, find a good local brunch and then get on the road home. We had high hopes of checking out Pangaea Bakery (they have vegan options) and Lone Spur Cafe (a recommendation from a fellow RVer at the RV park), but Pangaea’s hours were incorrect on yelp; they are closed on Sundays. And, Lone Spur didn’t have any available outdoor seating (which we needed because we had the dogs with us). We ended up driving to Wildflower Bread Company, which was good, but we missed out on a *proper* Prescott brunch.

After packing up everything in the airstream, we hit the road back to Scottsdale. This little cutie, Lala, sits on my lap whenever we are in the truck.

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Peace out, Prescott. Our next adventure will hopefully be mid November. I’m looking forward to getting on the road again.

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We have been working on a few projects in the airstream recently. We had an issue with the location of our battery, which was in a compartment on the outside of the trailer. The compartment opened up on the road, when Matt was heading home from having the brakes looked at by Camping World. That was the catalyst to finding a new area for the battery. Matt decided to fab a compartment in one of the closets, so the batteries would be safe and accessible. We started with 1 battery, but we added 2 more.

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Matt has also started working on the kitchen, which we are doing one side at a time, so as to not disrupt a good travel season. We are using walnut for the kitchen, so he started making the end panels. He made a cardboard template and then cut the first one. We are looking forward to a stable, usable kitchen….hopefully Matt will have some time to dedicate to the kitchen before the end of the year.

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We dropped our 1974 Airstream Sovereign at M & M Truck Polishing on Thursday and picked up her tonight. M & M Truck Polishing is one of 3 or 4 truck polishing shops in Eloy, AZ, which is half way between Phoenix and Tucson. We found them originally through this post on Airforums.com.  Knowing they had past experience with Airstreams was huge for us. We have been wanting to polish Airstreamy since we got her. We even bought a bunch of polishing stuff, but never got around do doing it ourselves. So, in my instant gratification mode, I told Matt we needed to take the trailer down to Eloy ASAP.

We called a couple of other shops in Eloy to see what they would quote us for a price. One shop quoted us a super low price, but I wasn’t sure if they would stick to it and we hadn’t seen any of their work.  I was fairly certain that M & M wasn’t even around anymore, as the phone # on the building is disconnected and there is no photo number for them in the phone book. Luckily, as soon as we got to Eloy, we pulled into M & M and the guys happened to be there-SCORE! We agreed on a price and a timeline, then said goodbye to our old friend, Airstreamy. Her makeover is beyond amazing. I think they had 3 guys working on the polishing over a period of 5 days. My best guess is that there was at least 180 man hours in this polish job (5 days x 3 guys working 12 hour days).

If you want to take your trailer to M & M Truck Polishing, the main polisher there is Antonio and the phone # we have for the shop is 520-483-5571. E-mail me at Jennifer@TwinsAndCompany.com if you would like more info on pricing.

Here is what Airstreamy looked like when we dropped her off last Thursday:

We’ll be replacing all the blue trim and re-painting the lettering in the coming weeks.

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The old WBCCI numbers are gone, but we’ll get new ones when we join. Look at how bad the banana wraps were.

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They applied a diluted acid to help remove the clear coat before starting to polish.

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This was a quick area the guys showed us before we left her for her 5 night sleepover:

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Here are some in progress photos:

When we dropped Airstreamy off on Thursday, Antonio wanted to show us just how shiny the finish could be.

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After just 1 pass with the clear coat still intact.

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Tools of the trade.

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And, here the after shots from tonight, as M &M was wrapping up the polishing:

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They even polished the wheels for us.

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The letters are dirty, dirty. We’ll be cleaning them soon.

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Airstreamy’s first selfie. 😉

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Hibbard selfie!

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Let’s talk about how dirty you get from polishing an Airstream. These guys deserve major moola for doing jobs like this:

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This is Antonio, the main polisher. He is awesome.

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How about some before and after shots?!

They were able to remove some dents from the front panels and banana wraps…how cool is that? Our banana wraps look SOOOOO much better.

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We’ll be spray-painting our LP tanks and hitch, so they look better against the polish. We also bought a Cyclo model 5 polisher, so we can get out a few swirl marks. The guys at M & M did an outstanding job-we would recommend them to anyone.

I’m in love with Airstreamy all over again! ❤

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Matt and I hadn’t taken Airstreamy out since February; she’s been so lonely just sitting in the carport. We always try to figure out when we both have free schedules and we both happened to be able to take Labor Day off. So, even though we only have 1/2 a kitchen (we have lumber to order still), we called around to RV parks in Northern AZ to see what was available. My first call was to Rancho Sedona RV Park in Sedona, AZ. They were booked on the Sunday before Labor day, so I called Rio Verde RV park in Cottonwood, AZ. Rio Verde RV park had an opening on Sunday, so we booked it and then booked Rancho Sedona for Labor day.

We grabbed all our stuff and our 3 dogs, then hit the road late Sunday afternoon. It was the first time traveling with all 3 of our dogs, which wasn’t as hard as we thought it would be. We were somewhat restricted on where we could eat and where we could go, as we wanted to have the dogs with us at all times; nobody likes a barking dog in a trailer!

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We arrived to the Rio Verde RV park right past sunset and found our spot; #55. The office was closed when we arrived, so we did a self check-in. The spot was not a drive-in spot, but a parallel spot. It took a few tries to get into the spot, which seemed a bit small for our 31′ trailer. We were immediately greeted by a pack of javalinas, who lived in the hill right across from our site. They were harmless, but we definitely didn’t want to be outside with the dogs after seeing how close they were to our trailer. Our site had a big red ant problem, which was unfortunate, as it limited our outdoor time. The Verde River was the main draw to this RV park. However, our site wasn’t close enough to the river to enjoy it; all the river-frontage sites were booked on the day of our arrival. The Verde River looks like Willy Wonka’s chocolate river and there was tall grass to walk through to get up close to it. The park looks to have a few regulars; trailers that looked like they hadn’t moved in a while, which makes sense, since they offer monthly rates. There is an on-site yoga studio, which offers free yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30-6:30pm. There are tent and RV camping sites at Rio Verde RV Park and quite a few tent campers were set up on the river. For the price: $31.23/night, which includes full hook-ups, I would say it is a good place to stay, if you are in the area.

 

A video of our arrival at Rio Verde RV park

http://instagram.com/p/dvd3t3KTAZ/#

 

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I was informed by a friend on Instagram that there is a glitter institute in Cottonwood—say what?! Yes, there is indeed a glitter store called Art Glitter and a neighboring building called the Art Institute Glitter. What’s even cooler is that Barbara Trombley, the owner, founded Art Glitter Institute in 1983. She is literally the undisputed queen of glitter! We went by early on labor day and they were closed. I called a couple hours later and the glitter queen herself, Barbara, answered the phone. She said they were closed, but she would let me come by anyway-WOO HOO! If you don’t know, I am obsessed with glitter. Glitter is everywhere in my life; I always have glitter cell phone cases, glitter nails, glitter shoes, etc. I walked in and was in heaven. She has a little bowl of glitter by the door that she encourages customers to place their hands in upon walking in. And, then you walk around with glitter on your hands; it was like crack for me. I ended up buying 20+ pots of glitter from Barbara. My nails have never been so happy; her glitter is epic!

Video from my Art Glitter adventure

http://instagram.com/p/dxJObJqTC6/#

 

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After getting high on glitter (kidding), we went for a quick trip to Jerome. Since it was labor day, many stores appeared closed. We mostly went for sight-seeing, but we got lured into Mooey Christmas and Udder Things. Let’s just say that it is the Christmas store you’ve dreamed of in a Christmas store! I bought so much stuff that I had a hard time carrying everything back to the truck. I bought some light-up color wheel Christmas trees, a snowman color-changing snow globe, a trailer that plays Christmas music (it doesn’t say ‘Airstream’ on it, but it is basically an Airstream), an little retro TV that lights up and plays old rock ‘n’ roll songs, some ornaments, earrings, coffee cup, a couple salt and pepper shakers, etc. Pure holiday bliss!

Video from Mooey Christmas and Utter Things

http://instagram.com/p/dxDHuIqTGr/#

 

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We snapped a few pics around Jerome. It would be a great place to spend the whole day; we plan to go back and do just that!

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After leaving Jerome, we headed back to Rio Verde RV park and packed up to hit the road to Sedona. We arrived at Rancho Sedona RV Park and were instantly blown away by how nice it is. There were workers cleaning all around the park (we arrived just past check-in time) and the grounds were immaculate. The best part is that we reserved a spot right on Oak Creek; #79. Price: $63.90 with a Good Sam membership, which includes full hook-ups, wifi and cable TV. The park is dog-friendly- paid $2/dog and they even have a dog run.

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Our arrival at Rancho Sedona RV park

http://instagram.com/p/dxXl6AKTP-/#

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When we checked in at the office, we asked the gal if anyone swims in the creek, by the park. She showed up exactly where to go; a secret watering hole just to the right of where we were parked. We highly recommend spot # 79. You can walk right down to the creek behind #79 and then walk a little bit to the right to get down to the watering hole. Since it was still summer, the weather was beautiful and the water was probably as warm as it would get (still pretty cold). We hiked down some boulders to get the the secret watering hole and fell in love with this park even more. Not another soul was around and there was a rope swing and a swing seat; perfection. We went back a couple times and brought our chairs to enjoy the scenery. Molly even did a little swimming.

Video of Oak Creek watering hole behind Rancho Sedona RV park

http://instagram.com/p/dxtmamqTIP/#

 

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We didn’t do much sight-seeing in Sedona (we were only there for a day), but we did make it to Chocola Tree, a local vegan-friendly restaurant. We brought the dogs and sat outside on their side patio, which is dog-friendly. They have amazingly big apple trees (by AZ standards) out front in the parking lot. I had a grilled cheese one day and a raw caesar salad for the car ride home. The caesar salad was the best I have had! I bought a few raw chocolates to sample and found my new favorite, a raw pine truffle in the shape of a crown. I went back and iterally bought all of them…like 15. ha.

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Matt and I picked up matching airstream shirts by a company called United By Blue. If you haven’t heard of them, check out their site. For every shirt they sell, they do trash removal from major waterways and oceans around the world. By purchasing the Airstream shirt for $34, you help UBB remove 1 pound of trash from our oceans and waterways around the world.

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Sedona is magical and inspiring; we can’t wait to go back. Until next time…weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ll see you later!

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Next up for Airstreamy: Polishing. We are taking her down to Eloy, AZ today to get her polished up. We are visiting 3 different truck polishing shops (M & M truck polishing, Eloy show Truck Polishing and Flash Truck Polishing) to see who can do the best job for us. Polishing will be a catalyst to getting the exterior looking better. Hopefully, we can remove some dents from our banana wraps up front and get some rock guards soon, too. We are hoping to have a couple more adventures in the coming months.

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