For the past nine years, the Camp Verde Parks & Recreation Department has been taking community members to a variety of natural, cultural and historical sites throughout the region via their “Community Day Trips” program.
Parks & Recreation Manager Michael Marshall said he came up with the idea for the trips during the last recession in 2008.
“At the time, parks was not doing a lot as it was post-recession,” he said. “They had laid off a lot of staff and canceled a lot of activities, and I was looking for something that I could bring forward that would help people, that could be done by one person.”
For a time, Marshall drove community members himself; nowadays, the slightly-larger Parks & Rec staff take turns.
“We have a staff of three and three-quarters at the moment,” he joked.
So far this year, staff have taken community members to Grand Canyon Caverns, Rim Country Museum, Zane Grey Cabin & Mazatzal Casino, and are preparing to for a trip to Bearizona on Friday, Aug. 5.
Marshall said that typically, about a dozen community members sign up for the trips, which “basically go out every other Friday” of the summer season, from July to September.
“Sometimes there’s 13; sometimes we only have eight or 10,” he said. “Our shuttle bus will hold 13 people, plus our driver.”
Marshall said that some community members are frequent users of the day trip program.
“We have some people who’ve been doing it for several years,” he said. “[Our main patrons] are retirees, people that don’t want to deal with the hassle of driving and parking. We go and get the tickets and pass them out. Sometimes we have younger adults and sometimes people bring their grand-kids.”
The day trips begin at 9 a.m. and normally last until 4 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
Each trip has a “walking scale” that indicates the amount of walking required: One star for a small amount, two stars for a medium amount, and three stars for a large amount.
“Depending on where we are going, it might be a fairly significant amount of walking,”
Marshall said. “We have [the stars] to try to give people a little bit of a hint of how much walking that’s in some of the places; it’s kind of subjective.”
So far, the trips are not wheelchair accessible, however Marshall said that there have been “some people with mobility issues that have been able to come on the trips.”
“The shuttle bus is low and fairly easy to get into,” he said.
Following the Bearizona trip, Parks & Rec has four trips remaining for the season: Phippen Museum and downtown Prescott on Friday, Aug. 19, Coconino County Fair and Fort Tuthill Park on Friday, Sept. 2; Mortimer Farms Sunflower Festival and Corn Maze on Friday, Sept. 16; and The Arboretum and downtown Flagstaff on Friday, Sept. 30.
All of the trips are self-guided, and the costs vary.
“It’s all reasonably priced,” Marshall said. “We’re covering our cost of fuel and whatever the cost of admission is, and the cost of the person who is driving. Sometimes you’re going to a place with a $10 admission price, sometimes it’s a $25 admission price.”
Marshall said sometimes senior, children or veteran discounts apply to the costs of admission, sometimes they do not.
While there are not currently any mandatory COVID-19 precautions in place for the trips, Marshall said that masking is optional and the department is advising people who are feeling sick to stay home.
“They’re obviously welcome to wear a mask if they’re more comfortable wearing one,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of people that have worn masks when they’re in the shuttle but no requirement on our end.”
More more information about the trips, visit campverde. az.gov.
