Thursday Dec 22, 2022 - Dead Horse Ranch - Jerome - Clarkdale - Cottonwood

Slept like logs last night. A bit nippy this morning (30 deg F) but the little heater did its job. We hiked into Cottonwood on not so well marked trails, stopping at the ranger station/visitor center on the way. Crossed the bridge to get over the Verde River, which had a nice bunch of water flowing through it, too wide to jump over, then cut back under the bridge and walked into the downtown Cottonwood streets. Cottonwood is where a lot of the mining folks lived when the mine was really going. Clarkdale is another few miles up the hill and was a planned community in 1912 and was also where the smelter was located. Jerome is another 4 miles up the hill and it is where the ore was dug out of the ground. I’ll double check all this tomorrow when we go to the museum in Jerome. I work at the Bisbee museum and I am spying on other mining town museums.

We had breakfast at Old Town Cafe which is a small diner kind of place (coffee, eggs, toast, more coffee kind of place). An older gentleman (88 years old) sat next to us and he was just getting coffee and a pastry while he waited for the jeweler to open next door (his wife’s Christmas present). Wonderful guy, worked his career in the State Department as a physician mostly for the Secretaries of State, but also traveled with Jimmy Carter when he was president. Lovely man with lots of stories from around the world. You never know about that man or woman sitting at the next table…

We walked through town, stopping in all of the stores, and then back to the campground. In the afternoon we decided to drive the van up to Jerome to prospect for the next day’s activities. We stopped at Tuzigoot National Monument where Native Americans lived between 1000 and 1400 ish. During the depression the government hired a bunch of folks to excavate it with a couple of science guys.

We then drove up to Clarkdale and finally up to Jerome. We had been to Jerome 5 or 6 years ago and remembered where we stayed and where we had dinner. Jerome is a small town with a lot of tourists (good for them). Clarkdale is kind of run down but there are new housing developments going in all over. Cottonwood is a tourist town and has a big commercial strip (Walmart, Home Depot, etc) and again, lots of new housing going in. Jerome is kind of old and beat up but they are really working the tourist thing.

We stopped at the Smelter Town Brewery in Clarkdale for a couple of drinks and an appetizer, then back down the hill to Cottonwood and had dinner at The Tavern for two nice big salads. Then back to the campground, showers and maybe a Jack Ryan episode later tonight.

Day 13