live. work. dream.

I gotta give Raul an A for Effort for the biscuits and gravy he made us yesterday. After all, they were the first thing ever cooked in our new fifth wheel’s little oven, he used Rene’s homemade “Bisquick” mix, and the gravy was from Tony Chachere’s Southern Pantry White Gravy Mix – a decent standby for quick homemade biscuits and gravy. But I must say the Coffee Pot in Sedona, AZ has served up the best biscuits and gravy on this trip so far.

Famous for serving up a menu of 101 different omelets since the 1950’s, this colorful and comfortable southwest restaurant is named after the nearby Coffee Pot rock – one of the many prominent red rock buttes surrounding Sedona, AZ. The service is fast and friendly. The coffe is good, and the leave the hot pitcher on the table so you can fill the unique handmade mugs which are available for purchase in the gift shop.

Since I felt it mandatory to order an omelet at a place that offers 101 varieties, I opted for a biscuit instead of toast and asked for a side of country gravy. A good decision indeed. The cut cake pan style biscuit was tall, fluffy and golden brown. The gravy was creamy with a smooth consistency and quite flavorful. Crispy hashbrowns and a tasty mushroom, avocado and swiss cheese omelet made this my best breakfast yet in our travels.

Do yourself a favor, and skip this area of AZ any other time of year except winter.

We don’t like KOA parks, but we decided to stop here because it was easy to meet my parents there, and we could use it as a base camp to explore the area south, Sedona. The tightwad in me also wanted to avoid the few overpriced RV parks closer to Sedona. So upon check in, we weren’t expecting much other than the standard swimming pool and hookups that would allow us to run our AC. But what we found out after check in was, this KOA is, simply put, a dump.

The place is run down, trash is everywhere, the sites are crammed together, and management is so cheap they won’t even buy toilet seat covers for the restrooms. Unlike other KOAs we’ve overnighted at, this one had no DVDs for rent, the office doesn’t open till 8am and you can’t even buy a newspaper until then because they’re in the office. And they don’t even have a pool! In Arizona!

As we sat in the cool comfort of our Fox’s air conditioner while the outside world baked in 100 degree heat (ok, it was 95, but is there really a difference?), someone knocked at our door. It was a KOA Flagstaff clerk, who arrived to tell us that we weren’t allowed to run our AC on their 30amp hookups, “because the park is so old it can’t handle it.” If we had been told this ahead of making the reservation, we never would’ve stayed there.

(more…)