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!

Sedona, AZ & Dead Horse Ranch S.P.

Historic Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, AZ on Old Route 66

 

At Flagstaff, AZ we took the highway south and down into the beautiful canyon leading to Sedona. We enjoyed the lovely sites of both Slide Rock State Park and Red Rock State Park. The canyon was closed for exploration due to recent forest fires but the State Parks were open for visitors.

We found the city of Sedona very rich and tourist-y and decided to keep going toward Red Rock S.P.

We watched a gorgeous desert lightening storm but amazingly, we didn't get any rain where we were.  

Prickly Pear Cactus were everywhere! I made the mistake of picking one of the blossoms off of the top of this pretty one and literally got 50 very small needles imbedded into my fingers. Ouch!

Careful Ash! :-)

 

So breathtaking! We parked and meandered around this beautiful area for quite a while.

 

Mama and Mandy

Three weary travelers

We headed south to Cottonwood where we intended on staying at Dead Horse Ranch State Park. The clouds were ominous..

Upon our arrival, the park ranger warned us that a summer monsoon was coming in but assured us that he would place us in a loop that had more mature landscaping for hopes that the wind would be less forceful for us. That was comforting.. I guess.. :-) The storm only lasted for about an hour. It included very high winds and lightening so close that there wasn't even a pause between the lightening bold and crashing thunder! We went for a drive on the nearby desert roads and just about got forced off the road with the compression of the nearby strikes. Very impressive and scary! ;-)

 

While out scouting, the boys came across this little guy. They thought he was dead and started tossing rocks near him to make sure.. (they haven't been raised in the desert else they would have known that the guy was just cold and napping!) He scared them almost to death when he started rattling at them and slithered away!

 

We also came across this cute roadrunner while on a walk

 

Mama makes dinner. Since we were at a campground, the task was a bit easier since we had electricity and were hooked up to water.. dry camping is quite a bit harder than while being hooked up.. but both are enjoyable.

After leaving Dead Horse Ranch State Park, we stopped by a local dog park to let the dogs run free for a while! Needless to say, they had a blast!