Prescott Valley, Arizona 

September, 29 - 30 - October 1 - 2, 2025

Sue and I are off on a shake down run with the new Ram / Entegra ARC Camper Van to Prescott Valley, Arizona.  We have a reservation at the Lynx Lake Campground in the Prescott National Forest.  We drive I-10 west into Phoenix and then take route 17 north with moderate traffic flow, the flow through Phoenix seems to be much improved with minimal construction and added traffic lanes.  The drive up route 17 is always a little crazy with the steep hills, curves and trucks tying up the slow lane in places.  Driving towards Prescott Valley on route 69 takes you through beautiful country but as you enter the valley it quickly goes from open country to city with all the shopping malls, strip malls, businesses, hotels, fast food and restaurants.   Prescott Valley was incorporated in the 1960’s by a Phoenix real estate company and it shows, the city is booming.  

We find the Lynx Campground easily a couple of miles off route 69 and drive to our campsite.  This rig basically requires no setup, that’s the beauty of it.  It’s small and very compact with no space to spare, some might even call it claustrophobic, but I prefer to call it minimalistic. I’m of average height and I have bumped my head several times already and have added a few bumpers.  For the sake of domestic relations I am trying not to complain, but there are several things about the Van, we call it the ARC, that I don’t like, such as the excessive use of overly complex control panels to control the hot water heater mode, fuel or gas function, water temperature, fan speed and clock settings. 

We head out immediately on a hike around Lynx Lake which is something less than half full at present due to a problem with a drain valve malfunction.  It’s a nice hike of about 4 miles around the lake, but the trail down to the river is steep and not well marked.  As a result we kind of bushwhacked our way back uphill.  Later research indicated that gold was discovered in the Lynx River in 1863 which continued into the 1930’s which was quite productive.  I had noted much quartz along the hiking trail which is an indicator for gold. 

Lake level is very low

We have no hookups at this campsite so we are running totally off of our house batteries which hold up well overnight, in the morning we run the generator for a while to recharge. During the night, I heard some chewing sounds under our bed, I am a very light sleeper which Sue is the opposite, she heard nothing.  I didn’t want to say anything, I thought it may be a critter under the Van.
On our second day, we go to the nearby Lynx Creek Ruin Trailhead which is through an area that has sustained a forest fire years ago, but is still very scenic.  It goes to an ancient pueblo Indian site called that appears more like a few piles of rock, but I’m sure has had some archeological activity.

Burnt tree trunk 

View from the trail

Artistic depiction of the Pueblo

Scattered remains of the Pueblo

We then travel to the Smith Ravine Trailhead for another hike adjacent to a former forest fire burn area.  It eventually climbs uphill into a beautiful forested area with huge Ponderosa Pines, Oaks and lots of Manzanita. We now have satisfied our hiking passion and its back to the campsite.  On our second night, I am now sure that some critter is in our van and Sue hears it also.  As we slide the bed frame back in we see the telltale signs, also looking under the hood there are more of them.

On the edge of the burned area

Heading into the deep forest

Manzanita shrubs are everywhere

It’s now our third day and we drive about 10 miles away to the  lake and hike on the Peavine Trail with a slight detour to the Watson Woods.  We then exit the Peavine Trail and take the scenic Watson Lake trail.  It’s a beautiful trail winding through giant boulder fields with a great lake view.

Sue posing in front of a massive Cottonwood Tree

Watson Lake is beautiful

Afterwards, we drive to the historic downtown Prescott area where we walk around the Whiskey Row area, do some shopping, have pizza and ice cream.

I'm always drawn to the Jersey Lilly Saloon

That's how cowboys take a break

Historic Fountain in Courthouse square

It’s now our third night and our mouse is still with us.  Due to the size of the droppings, we now believe it to be a mouse, but we are wondering if it has traveled with us from Tucson to Prescott or has joined us here.  Sue claims that the seed residue left behind looks like the seeds on a shrub near our Tucson driveway, the mystery continues ! 

It's eating well on the top of engine 

 I had some concern about our house battery voltage overnight, but I thought that as we drove the van in the morning, the batteries would recharge from the Ram engine alternator.  After stopping in Phoenix and looking at the invertor panel, I see that the house batteries have not charged and the inverter is showing a fault code.  Back home, I learn that the code indicates that the batteries were overly discharged causing the inverter to shut down.  The solution is to plug into 120V shore power to recharge the batteries or run the generator, however the generator will not start because the batteries are dead.  I plug into a household outlet at home and everything corrects itself, but I’m still not sure about the function between the Ram alternator and the house invertor.

Another mystery, but probably simple electrical stuff, I’m more of a mechanical guy ! 

Overall, it was a successful shake down run, but much remains to learn, it has so much technology.