We headed out to Lyman Lake to try another new place. It was a bit farther than our normal trips, so we waited until Saturday to leave. It’s odd to be driving during the day. I’ve gotten so used to driving at night that seeing the road during the day is kind of refreshing. This area of Arizona had this weird green dirt. It moved funny and didn’t seem to form into dust clouds like other areas of Arizona.
Lyman Lake is a little ways past Show Low and north of Springerville. The camp site itself didn’t really impress me all that much, but it had electricity and water, so that was what we needed. We got there early enough to really kinda walk around and get familiar with the location. I mostly spent the first night getting to know our neighbors Mike and Valerie. They were great folks and a lot of fun to talk to. Someone left a boatload of charcoal in the barbecue grill, so I fired that up and made dinner. Steaks and mashed taters. Yum.
Somehow I failed to bring enough firewood. Just a couple chunks of wood. But we made the best of it. We made piña coladas, and relaxed. We spent most of the night chit chatting with our neighbors, and they gave us a couple of places to check out the next day. Specifically there was an old path across the lake that used to have tours on it. Unfortunately during some of the budget cuts several years before those tours were shut down. But the path is still available, and able to be walked. You just have to get there on your own.
The next morning we started out by doing a bit of redecorating in the RV. That suction cup map that kept falling down came down off the window. I suppose I may as well introduce you guys to the interior. The 50 cent tour if you will.
The map we had on the window kept falling down. So we replaced it with this metal map that we intend to cover in magnets for each state we visit. So far we only have Nevada and Arizona. It will be filled… Oh yes, it will be… We picked this one up at Hobby Lobby. I think it fits our personalities in that it has a much older feel even though it isn’t old at all. Kinda like us. We tend to enjoy surrounding ourselves with classic stuff. Even though we aren’t classics… Well I’m not classic… She has all the class, I’m just the ‘ic.
Up next is the bedroom. We brought our unique style into the bedroom. We added the big bad wolf. Complete with granny in the stomach. No, really there’s a little stuffed granny in the stomach. To be honest, I had little to do with the decoration of the bedroom. Above the bed are the three paw prints of our dogs. The one that looks deformed is our “special” dog Scarlet who has two speeds Full Speed Ahead, and asleep.
In the bathroom we have a little Smurf house(complete with Grouchy Smurf). Our RV is called Backseat Betty. So you may notice a few different Betty images through the RV. We love how roomy it is despite not having a slide out. We don’t like slide outs because that’s just one more thing that can break. In the bottom right you see our electric heater. This is what we use when we’re hooked up to electricity and it gets a bit cooler. Saves on propane.
This was our first trip out after we lost a really close friend. He passed away suddenly and it caught us off guard. We decided to bring him along with us on all of our future trips. This set up sits on our kitchen table. It also manages to hold my sweetheart’s flamingo. I didn’t think that thing would make it’s way into the RV, but I think it looks nice where it is.
The original idea behind some of our decor was to go with the stone age theme. That was back when we got our first RV that never made it past the Scottsdale city limits. As you can see in this pic we kept some of the stone age themes, but went more with the late 50 to 60’s kinds of themes. The window cover is simply because we live in Phoenix and if we didn’t cover the windows the inside would be an oven. The rug on the floor was all done by my sweetie. She made it. Tell her how much you like it in the comments 😉
To the kayaks! After the quick decorating session we loaded the kayaks into the truck to paddle over to the old tour area. The wind was whipping the water up into a nice little uncomfortably tippy trip for me. My kayak likes to try to dump me into the water. My sweetheart has the better kayak. WAY better when she has her seat.
The old trail is actually fairly easy to hike, there are a few spots that have been washed out, but for the most part it’s simple enough to do for most people. It’s a long hike, but as I said, it’s an easy hike. Just pay attention to where the trail leads. More than a couple times the trail wasn’t very clear.
When we got back from the trip across the way we decided to check out the other camp ground areas. Aside from maybe one other site, not much really impressed me as far as camp sites went. We drove over to where the beach was and I liked the area down there for boondocking. Perhaps next time we go there I’ll have solar panels and we can exist without a power cord attached.
We got back to the RV, and it was getting close to dark. Mike and Valerie were setting up their fire, and since we had like one log left, it made more sense to hang out with them. Plus they are awesome folks. I hope we run into them again.
Monday rolled in and we stumbled to get going. We wanted to check out the other petroglyph trail. It’s a pretty hefty hike and a lot of walking. While not as pretty as the across the lake petroglyph trail, it still had it’s moments. 
I think if I were going to go hiking, this place offers some of the best options. The petroglyph trail could easily take over two to three hours if you explored all of it.
Amazingly, we made it home with no major issues on the whole trip. Nothing fell off, or broke. An awesome trip.
Tommycat's RV Adventures 