Adventuring in Arizona 2018

This week six of us ladies went out exploring Arizona and I have to say this was one of the craziest things I have ever experienced! The first half of the trip we took the time to explore and the second half we went to Lake Havasu to party like spring breakers! We had an amazing experience and I will tell you why in this story.

First of all, going on a trip with 6 women in the first place is kind of crazy. We are very self-sufficient ladies and we thought it would be easy to rend a Minnie Winnie camper to go exploring.. We started our trip off by taking a flight into Vegas. We took along a couple of shooter of booze and Advil to get us through the flight! I also brought along a speaker that went in my carry on. It is not a fun process getting that thing through security but it is worth it! Once we landed in Vegas we took a taxi south to the outskirts of Vegas where we picked up the camper. We rented our camper from a website called Outdoorsy. It is a website where you find a camper you would like to rent in the area and then you apply to rent it. You can rent campers that are owned by companies or you can rent them from people who are willing to rent out their camper while they are not using it. Still not sure why they let us 6 rent their Minnie Winnie! We get into the parking lot signed the papers and off we went. Well… it wasn’t that simple! I ended up being the one to drive first. We were all pumped and ready to go, I throw the thing in drive, hit the gas and we heard nothing but the engine revving and we weren’t going anywhere! As everyone was laughing at me the rental owner walked over and said: “you need to take the parking brake off”. So embarrassing! Finally, we got the thing to go and off we went. We were pulling out of the small parking lot as the owner was still watching us and I took the corner to sharp and hit some tree branches… As the branches scraped the side of the camper we did not look back, we just took off!

Our first stop was a little town called Page Arizona which took us about 5 hours to get there. The roads were tiny and the wind was aggressive. Shantel and I were not the most experienced when it came to driving a camper so this was an obstacle! It was very late and dark when we found our campsite called Lake Powell Resorts and Marina. We didn’t get everything set up correctly in the camper that night because it was dark and we had a weird cat that kept trying to help.

Once we woke up that morning it was the coolest thing to see. We were on top of a hill overlooking Lake Powell! We made our breakfast and called the only taxi service in the town to bring us to our first excursion Antelope Lower Canyon tours. They have an Upper Canyon tour as well but we decided to go on the lower one because it was shorter and cheaper.  Someday I would like to go back and see the Upper. Anyways, as the Taxi approaches, we didn’t know what to think… Here rolls up a hippy van that we all couldn’t understand how the thing was still working.. We hopped in and off we went. It was about 5 miles to our destination this taxi cost us $80! It was a rip off! Once we got there I had already pre-bought our tickets online and signed our waivers so we didn’t have to wait in line and do any of that stuff while we were there. We broke off into small groups of 6 and we ended up getting an amazing tour guide! The Canyons were like nothing I can describe. Everyone has seen these canyon photos on their screensaver and I thought they were fake. Turns out they are real and it is even prettier in person! Make sure when you are taking pictures of the canyon to have the tour guide show you how to get the most out of each picture. They change the setting on your camera to bring out more colors and the pictures turn out unbelievable!!  This tour was well worth the money and I would go back to see it again if I could, I never say that! We finished our night with a fire, drinks and a little music.

The next day we decided to pack up our camper and head to Horseshoe Bend which is FREE. On our way there, we stopped at a gorge called the Little Colorado River Gorge. This was a great quick and free stop to see. All of these things we did were in the little town of Page so they were only about 15 minutes away from each other! Once we got to horseshoe bend it was great. We parked in a little dirt parking lot and had to walk about a mile to see it. The walk was very easy and manageable for anyone. Once we finally got there it was unlike something I have ever seen before.. Breathtaking. There were a lot more tourists then I was expecting but the place was so massive it didn’t even matter. We say this lookout in all sorts of Instagram photos but I never thought it could be that amazing to look at. We ended up going to the highest point to look off of and it was so worth the climb. This is something I would recommend to everyone to see sometime in their lives!

Next, we made our way to Havasu where we spent the rest of our vacation. We parked our camper at the Crazy Horse Campground. I do not recommend this place if you are young and like the hangout. We were surrounded by seasonal campers that didn’t let us listen to music, talk very loud, drink or really anything without yelling at us. This put a damper on our vacation. We pretty much hung out inside our camper most of the time but we went out a couple of night to the bars. A fun bar was called the Kokomo where everyone ends up going to on spring break!  Another fun bar was the Turtle Beach Bar this bar was outside right on the lake with fun music. We ordered a Bucket drink for $32. You should split this bucket with other people because they are big and have a lot of alcohol in them. Very tasty!  One of the days we went to the beach where most of the spring breakers go its called ******. This was a very fun area where we took our massive speaker and filled the whole beach with music. We still regret not renting a Cabana from Cabana Boat Rentals. People were ripping it up on these things and we regretted not spending the money on that experience.

On our last day, we made our way back to the airport which was only a 3-hour drive. The flight home was smooth and it felt great to finally sleep in my bed again! I can’t wait to go back to Arizona because I felt like I didn’t get to see everything. My next thing on the bucket list is Havasu Falls!