Jerome, AZ

We had heard that Jerome was an old ghost town.. we followed steep and windy roads up to what we found as an old mining town, turned tourist trap! We were a bit disappointed but happily noticed a small sign pointing off and further up the mountain where we found an old mine and belt powered lumber operation, still functioning albeit mostly for tourist purposes. The old miner that lives up there has been there since the 1950's. His place was littered with old vehicles, machinery and even roaming burros! Grady was amazed at how well the old vehicles had been preserved- due to the dry climate. The girls enjoyed perusing the gift shop. A lot of the nick-knacks and figurines reminded me of my grandpa. Fools gold, figures of miners and their burros, panning-for-gold kits and pseudo gold buttons brought me back to my childhood and grandpa's mining laboratory.

The drive up the steep mountain was stressful with the trailer!

But the views up top were definitely worth the drive

We stopped off at the museum at the top of the hill and got permission to drop the trailer so that we could proceed up the windy, narrow roads more easily.

 

 

 

We returned to the museum at the top of the hill to retrieve our trailer..

 

On our way back down the mountain, our brakes started smelling hot..

By the time we reached the bottom of the hill our brakes were smoking! We stopped at a gas station for a while to let them cool.. the man at the station told us that it happens all the time, due to the steep grade of the hill. He told us that sometimes the cars come down with their brakes on fire! It was such a nice day, trailer stresses and all! :-)

 

After letting the car cool a while we pointed our truck toward the Grand Canyon which was about 3 hours away. After a few hours of driving we found a free campsite on the side of a forest service road and slept great.. until the bears came.. thankfully they only rocked on our back bumper and shuffled around a bit, looking for food! ;-) That was a looong night!