Enough of the big city - back on the road!

We enjoyed our time with Jeff and Star (thanks again guys!), and our first experience with Boondockers Welcome , however we had had enough of the big city. So fortunately, the cold, wet, rainy, windy, and snowy weather system to the north of us has now passed by, and we were happy to be able to head out yesterday morning.

Still, it took us hours to get out of the built up area. We had a few stops to make along the way...

We needed to do a grocery shop, and so the first stop was a Food City store where they have far better fruit and veggie prices than Walmart. Food City has a big Hispanic following, and you almost feel like you're in Mexico when you shop there. Mexican music playing in the background, and people speaking Spanish. We like going there. In fact, we even spoke to the lady packing the grocery bags. She was from Mexico City and she liked that we spoke to her in Spanish!

Deal of the day...red delicious apples for 33 cents a pound!

Next up, we were headed to a Shell station along our route that supposedly had good propane prices, and an RV dump station. I often use http://www.sanidumps.com/ to find a free dump station. We got there, and the RV dump station had closed. This does occasionally happen, where a listing hasn't been updated. (Yes, I updated the listing!)

That's okay, because we're nowhere near full and there are a couple of free dump station in Prescott where we're heading today.

The trip to that Shell station wasn't a total waste of time though because their propane was a good price at $2.59 per gallon, tax included. There is a wide variance in propane prices and it pays to shop around. For example, the nearby U-Haul places that sell propane are at $3.17 per gallon. That's more than 50 cents a gallon higher, and when you've got a 20 gallon tank, that's more than $10 saved.

Next stop was a QT gas station where they have free air and water. The rear tires were a couple of pounds lower than they should be, so I topped them up. There was one guy in front of me, and he took about 20 minutes to put air in his tires. I even asked if he needed help, but he just sluffed me off. Must be the same guy who takes a half hour at the dump station.

And then, (finally!) on the outskirts of the city area we stopped at a Walmart to complete our grocery shopping.

It was already 3:45pm by the time we got out of the big city.

And three lanes became two.

Nice rainbow off in the distance.

We pulled off the Interstate highway at Black Canyon City to look for a place to overnight. We saw a sign for the Black Canyon Trail trailhead, and figured it was worth checking out. Sure enough, it looked like a great overnight spot. No signs saying that we couldn't, so that's where we set up. And it's far enough away from the Interstate that we don't get much highway noise.

GPS coordinates 34.05256 -112.15151

And besides being a great overnight spot, we're right at the trail. So we decided to go out and get some exercise before the sun went down.

Sherman, through the cactus.

It's a really nice trail. Very scenic!

Looking down on part of Black Canyon City.

Back before sunset.

We love free camping!

I was saying last night that if RV parks were free, we'd still rather be here. One of my favorite things about RV'ing is to open our window blind in the morning and see where we are!

Once again, the Jackery external iPhone recharging battery packs are on sale at Amazon.com. These battery packs have great reviews and even at $29.95 it's a great deal. But this is a timed special today, and they're going to be even cheaper for a couple of hours this morning...

Jackery® Bar Premium iPhone Charger External Battery 6000mAh Portable Charger Power Bank

Yesterday's drive, 65 miles (104 kms).