Jerome. A mining town on the side of a mountain.

On Wednesday we checked out a few RV Parks for a stop next year.   We have found that we are usually off seeing the sights and seldom use the facilities of the RV Park.  The only exception was our stay at Gold Canyon and we were there for 2 months so some Yoga, Pickleball and workouts in the Gym were a nice change from hiking and sightseeing.

Of the parks we checked out the Zane Grey Park was probably the best and at $450 p/m much more reasonable than the full Snowbird parks at about $800 p/m.

We finished off the day with a walk down the old main street of Cottonwood which was quite scenic, lots shops and a nice restaurant for a late lunch.  This area also has a number of Vineyards and they sponsor Wine Tasting shops in each of these little towns.  We will have to visit a few next next time.  

Just a few miles past the town of Cottonwood is Jerome.  Its a copper mining town that was built at the turn of the last century and reached its peak in the early 1900's.  Today it has a population of 500, mostly servicing tourists, but at its peak its population was 15000.

It is built quite literally into the side of the mountain and after a steep winding drive we reached the townsite.  The elevation was over 7000 ft which was about 2000 ft above the valley below.

Below is the Verde valley and the San Francisco peaks in the distance.  Not sure about the name as the mountains are close to Flagstaff and not San Francisco.
 

You can see the houses, including a beautiful hotel at the top, centre of the picture.  All built into the mountain.  The streets and highway, 89A, wind through the town up and over the mountain.  The front of the buildings are at street level and anchored into rock but the backs sit on stilts.  Looks a little precarious however they have been there for over a hundred years.  Bet they check regularly for termites.

The cement plant in the lower part of the picture is in the valley and just outside of Clarkdale, another small town on Highway 89A.

One of them Tree Huggers

 So this is how the miners of the day got to work.  They were lowered down the mining shaft in this contraption suspended by a steel cable to a large winch.  This shaft was 1900 feet down.  The empire state building is about 1200 ft.

This is downtown Jerome.  There are so many shops, restaurants and bars that one could spend a few days here to see it all.
The building below was originally a brothel.  

Some of the houses were quite lovely.  Others you felt that if you just stood there a little longer it would fall 2000 feet into the valley below.

Back in our campsite treeing this little fella has be Charli's favourite activity.

Here is our campsite.  If we could park the truck somewhere else it would be a nice site but when sitting in our chairs about all you can see is the side of the truck or the side of the trailer.  If you walk to the street the views are actually pretty good.
I don't know why but I had a terrible time backing into this site.  Took me a number of tries to get the correct line.

Here is the clubhouse which contains the laundry, gym (which I haven't visited) library and showers as well as a common room and a small pool outside.  

Friday and Saturday we have some chores to do; i.e. laundry, draining tanks.  Will also do some reading and take in the Pecan and Wine Tasting festival in Camp Verde on Saturday.  Sunday we leave for 4 days at the Grand Canyon and will report from there providing we can find some Wifi.  Then we are off to Page for 3 days and after that the long drive back home.

Later.  

Red Rock Galore

On Sunday we made the trek from Havasu to Camp Verde and caught a glimpse of the snow covered San Francisco peaks just north of Flagstaff.

We took I40 and from Kingman to Ash Fork the road was quite bumpy and in need of resurfacing.  Lori was trying to take pictures of the scenery and every time she snapped we hit a bump and her picture turned out blurry.  I rescued a few of the drive.

Here they cut 2 channels through the side of the hill.

In addition to snow on the far off peaks we saw some in the ditches and tree line.  As we drove the temperature dropped from 90F to low 60's as we gained elevation.










Our initial plan was to turn at Ash Fork and take 89 down towards Prescott and on to Camp Verde.  We made the exit on I40 and within a 1/2 mile we saw a sign that said no trucks over 40 feet and we are about 52 feet.  We decided discretion would be the wise choice and took the first turnaround.  Later in the week we visited Jerome, which is a mining town built on the side of a mountain with narrow winding roads.  We most likely would have been driving right through the downtown so turning around was definitely the right choice.

Changing our plans at the last minute and trying to book in the Sedona area proved to be more difficult than we expected.  The last 3 weeks of March and the beginning of April are spring break for the schools in Arizona and many get out camping with their families.  We did manage to find a spot at Distant Drums RV Park just outside of Camp Verde and other than bad wifi, which is fast becoming the norm, the campground is very nice, centrally located and suits our needs.

I had to look for a garage to do an oil change on the truck as a message popped up on the dash indicating I should change the oil within 500 miles.  Our internet search located a Ford dealer in Cottonwood just a few miles down the road however when we got their it was closed.  The GMC dealer next door was also closed.  Turns out both dealerships were owned by the same company and they went bankrupt during the recent recession.  Both buildings look almost brand new.  The lady working at the tourist info centre directed me to a local garage and booked an appointment to get the oil changed the next day.  Came back on Tuesday and waited while they did the work.  When I got the bill I had to gulp hard.  $193. US.  They only charged $25. for labour but used Synthetic instead of Dyno and since the truck takes almost 4 gallons of oil the total was bit higher than I had anticipated.  We are good to go now for another 9-10k KM and since we are towing 14,000 pounds the Synthetic is probably a good choice.

We spent Monday and Tuesday driving around the Sedona area taking in the views.  The spring break crowd on top of the snowbirds meant that there were lineups for everything.  We plan on coming back to this area next year but will definitely be out of here before Mid-March.

The views are amazing and I can see why its rated as one of the most scenic places in America and is so busy.  In many respects its a tourist destination much like Banff or Lake Louise are in Canada.  Interesting though that we have seen more Arizona license plates here then in the rest of our travels.

 Our first view of Sedona nestled in a valley between towering peaks.

 This cathedral is built high above the town and has some amazing views.   The lineup to get into the small tight parking lot was quite long but we waited our turn and pulled in my mirrors and got shoehorned into a tight little parking spot.  Good thing I didn't get the dually.

These are views from the platform in front of the cathedral.

Not sure who owns this house at the base of the cathedral however they obviously have a few bucks.  The house is large and beautiful and is only outdone by the landscaping.

 We did manage to stop at a couple of tourist shopping traps.  This one, Tlaquepaque, had so much character with many different courtyards like the one below.  We did have lunch at the Secret Cafe but there were no bargains in the shops.

 

We had wanted to take a couple of hikes but most of the parking lots were packed so we will defer to our visit next year.  Wednesday and Thursday we are going to check out some RV Parks for next year and take a trip up to Jerome.

Later.

Parker Dam

On our drive out from Yuma last Sunday we were awed by the scenery from Parker to Havasu and realized how much we had missed the mountain views.   On Friday we drove back to Parker to do a little exploring and hopefully find a river park where Charli could have another swim.

The views did not disappoint.

The Bill Williams River merges with the Lake Havasu and the result is a large delta filled with reeds and grasses.  Makes for some nice contrast don't you think.
 

Parker Dam is just one of many dams along the Colorado and the water it holds back forms Lake Havasu.  If you look to the left of the dam you can just make out the much lower level of the river.

We crossed the dam and drove down the highway on the California side of the river.  Both sides of the river downstream from the dam are lined with vacation communities, state parks and RV parks.  If we come back to this area, and we probably will, I think we will look for an RV Park closer to Parker along the river.  Its a very beautiful area.

Some more of those burros.  They seem to be everywhere.  They have obviously done well since they were turned lose by the miners.  One thing the shop keepers in Oatman had mentioned to us is to keep Charli away from the burros.  I assured them I had her on a short leash and she wouldn't chase them.  They said they weren't concerned for the burros but rather they might mistake Charli for a Coyote and "kick the shit out of her or me if I was standing too close".  We kept a wide berth.

We stopped by one of the riverside parks to take a shot of the Colorado.
Also found a nice shade tree for a picture with Charli and me.  Lori is turning into a pretty good photographer.  

We found a picnic area that had a dog park right on the rivers edge.  Found a couple of sticks and threw them out in the water for about 30 minutes.  My arm always wears out long before Charli gets tired of fetching.  The current was pretty strong so I had to throw the stick upstream so she could get it and return without being taken too far downstream.  At one point she lost the stick but spotted a duck swimming out in the river and off she went.  Lori and I both called her to come back and for awhile she ignored us.  Just as we were about to panic she turned back and came ashore.   She is a pretty strong swimmer but we didn't want to see who was stronger, Charli's dog paddle or the current.

 Auto focus is a great invention however sometimes the camera gets confused and focuses on the wrong subject.  Here I got the tree branch and leaves in perfect focus and have a fuzzy white egret in the background.
Actually the effect turned out to be kind of neat.

 Saturday we took Charli out for another swim and spent the day packing up and draining tanks.  I have been having some problems with the Airborne Sidewinder pinbox on the trailer.  The wedge needs to be adjusted again.  I last did this when we left Tucson but we are getting more metal on metal scraping and its loud.  During one of our walks in the RV park I noticed someone else with the same setup as us and I managed to talk with him today.  He came over and suggested a few adjustments that might help and I'll look into those when we get home.  For the time being we greased everything we could and will see on Sunday how it works out.

We are off to Camp Verde on Sunday for 1 week.  This is a bit of a scouting trip as we'd like to spend more time in Verde and Sedona next year and this will allow us to visit some different RV parks and check out the activities.