Monday July 7, 2025 - Flagstaff to City Creek Campground (Forest Service, north of Circleville)

Monday July 7, 2025 - Flagstaff to City Creek Campground (Forest Service, north of Circleville) Deb here. We both slept amazingly well. Motel Du Beau has no air conditioning, but the window fan and ceiling fan dropped the temperature from 86 degrees to 68 degrees this morning. The fans covered the train noise, which was also a good thing. First order of business was walking next door to Macy’s European Coffee Spa for John’s best ever cup of coffee. Wow, does he ever love Macy’s coffee, and he claimed it was just as good as he remembered. We then walked back to the motel for their continental breakfast and were packed up and on the road before 8 a.m. We drove outside of town to Mitch’s house (Red Point Conversions) to have him take a look at our van’s Webasto heater. The heater is supposed to be run every 30 days or so, but the last time John ran it the heater wouldn’t start. He spent a lot of time problem solving with no luck, and he found MItch, a registered Webasto dealer who lives outside of Flagstaff. We met Mitch, dropped off the van, and took a walk in the neighborhood. Much to John’s relief/dismay, Mitch found there was nothing wrong with the heater since it started when he turned it on! We talked more with him about whether he could add an air conditiioning unit to our van and turns out he could do this, so we might be visiting him again in the future. It’s nice to find someone closer than Rifle, Colorado who can work on our van.

  

From there it was onto Rte 89 North, kind of officially starting our road trip. We passed the turnoff to Rte. 64, the road to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and then in Bitter Springs we opted to take Rte. 89A. We’d been on this road before and it’s stunning, passing the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument on the right. The colors are spectacular, with the multicolored cliffs, blue skies and puffy white clouds. We munched cheese and crackers and veggies in the car, so when we reached Jacob Lake we stopped at the Jacob Lake Inn, right at the junction of Rte. 67, the road to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Cooper and Lindsay had both mentioned the cafe there, and we stopped in for a piece of cherry pie (John) and peach pie (me). Nice family run inn, restaurant and gift shop. It was a hot day (reaching 100 at one point) so we kept driving, stopping in Kanab for gas but otherwise continuing on Rte 89 north. The terrain opened up into beautiful grasslands and pines, with water meandering through. Really lovely, green, mountains, water, blue sky… except for the heat pretty perfect.

We decided to give camping a try, and while John was driving I looked at campground options. I found City Creek Campground, through the National Forest Service, and here we are for the night. It’s about 7 miles off Rte 89 just north of Circleville and it’s great. No one here but us, in the trees and near a creek. Absolutely free. John just threw together our dinner and all is well. The temperature is cooling down nicely so we should have a good night!