#381 Willard Springs Rd, Dispersed Camping, Munds Park Az

We were looking for a place two hours away and this was a neat little place. It's close to where my niece Amber lives. We tried to contact her and as odd as it is she was in another state when we came through. She had gone back to North Carolina for a visit and we missed seeing her entirely. She lives in Munds Park which was 15 minutes away from this place.

It was on freecamp.net and some of the reviews said that it was a nice place and it is or was very open and had plenty of availability. They also said near the entrance looked like some sort of industrial area with a landfill and such but as we turn the corner it became out in the country real quick. We went on down a dirt road forever and it goes on for who knows how many thousand acres. It was just BLM land where some people free-range grazed cattle and it's just available for recreation so we love that. It's free and boondocking but nice to be legal. You would find little pull-outs here and there and I figured if I could I would maybe get away from everybody I would. I didn't want to be where there were 10 RVs all packed together so I went on down and I saw a whole bunch of cows in a corral but that's okay with me. I backed the RV in off the road and it was Rocky which is not a problem but if one of these rocks were extra sharp it does look like it could maybe puncture a tire. That's something to be nervous about.

I got parked and I was about to be done when a guy and the lady across the street on horses came over to talk. I usually think at every moment the sky is going to fall so I thought they were coming over to be mean to me. What they said was the opposite. He said we are weaning calves this weekend and it's going to be extremely loud. Are you sure you want to park here? I said what do you mean can you be more clear. They said whenever we separate the calves from Mama the Calves they start screaming for each other and it goes on for at least a day or two. You just might not want to be parked here 50 ft away. I took their advice and disconnected and went on down the road about a mile or so. It was a narrow one-lane dirt road. After a while, I saw a big opening up on the left that looked just ideal. There was nobody around so I backed it up in there and because I've learned some stuff now I oriented the driver's side of the RV to the west and that’s my ideal orientation for hot days. Flagstaff is at a high elevation so the weather was comfortable.

There was not a whole lot of restaurant choice at Munds Park and my niece wasn't in town and so we went towards Flagstaff and did the usual stuff. Get more fuel, have a bite to eat and in this case, we needed to get some DEF which is an additive that you can buy at the pump in some towns. We did all these chores and I'd seen a sign coming from Tuba City that said the San Francisco Peaks Sunset Crater Volcano. This is the kind of stuff you want to see but you just can't stop right now because you're on the way to your RV site. Today we had time so we went to see the volcano.

We were on a little bit of a schedule because we have to be at Sedona at a certain time but it gave me pleasure that we're not in such a big hurry that we couldn't go back and take another look. We decided to stay at the boondock for 3 nights. We went to the San Francisco peaks area and there was a hike and it was a lava flow that had been from an eruption years ago.

One of the first things I tried to figure out is I wonder when this happened? It's quite an illusion because you can see where the liquid lava flow came through and solidified as a black obsidian rock. There are some green sprouts here and there and you tell yourself it was probably 20 or 50 years ago or something like that. I read the sign and it said it was 1000 years ago and that was quite an interesting thing to learn.

We walked all about and this hike that took you in through where the lava had flowed. I tried to capture it on film but it's hard to get it as well as I'd like to. It was very fascinating to be walking across hardened lava.

We went back towards the RV later and we didn't do all that much while we were here but it was kind of nice to be out in nature. I can always find something to complain about but humans are my favorite subject. I mean everything's great for us except the favorite activity in these places is to be on your all-terrain vehicles and there's not much muffler going on. They just come buzzing by literally all day and you never can figure out if there's a purpose to it because there really isn't. It's just folks having fun but it's so loud and it's so bad that I just had to kind of have to get used to it. I just wish it could have been peaceful but that was the only negative. They just buzzed back and forth all day and until about 9:00 at night. sometimes they would stop about 9 or 10 which was wonderful, sometimes they needed more. Another negative is when you get people out in the woods far enough you have to shoot your guns. I just don't know what the rules are but I know that there is a time and a place for things but most people don't ask permission they just feel like if I'm out in the country far enough I do whatever I want. I started hearing p pop pop pop and you know we are in the era where people are shooting everybody and everything too much. I'm just not really a pro-gun person so it's kind of eerie and you have to hope and pray that they're aiming towards a dirt bank and not us. I called the ranger station and got a recording. I left a recording that said look I don't know exactly what the rules are but this seems like a family-oriented place and I just find it hard to believe it's okay to have a firearms party out here and it seems dangerous. I wish you'd check it out and you know it stopped about half an hour later, not because my phone call got through and not because the ranger did anything. I'm kind of hoping that somebody did a little policing of their own and said, hey I could you cut that out. I have no idea it's just bothered me. We had found a place called Verde Ranch and reserved it. I went to some effort to pick the right site. They had a detailed park map and we tried to have the awning side facing away from people so we could just enjoy the nature part. This would be our next stop and we headed on down towards Camp Verde, Arizona.

Willard Springs Rd. Munds Park, AZ 86017928-526-0866928-527-3600Official Website

GPS: 34.9704, -111.6926