Friday Oct 6, 2023 - Dead Horse Ranch State Park Day 2

 

Deb and Dave made chorizo eggs in tortillas and fruit. The plan was to go to Jerome which is part of the Cottonwood - Clarkdale - Jerome three town area. This was the home of a copper mine for many years. The two dogs, Benny and Cote, are joining us today as well so we all piled into Dave’s truck (yup, 5 adults and two dogs) and headed for Jerome. I think we have all been to Jerome before but at different times. Downtown Cotttonwood is a nice mid-sized tourist town with lots of shopping, and Clarkdale is small with a Copper Art museum and a brewery. It was built by the mine to smelt copper and is still the railroad hub, although now it is just tourist train excursions. Then up the super windy skinny road to Jerome. Jerome is small with skinny streets that zig zag up accross the face of the mountain. You can still see signs of mining with old mine shafts here and there and light brown industrial buildings left over. The town itself has that feel like Bisbee of a late 1800’s mining boom town that is now just a tourist spot. The buildings of Jerome have a history of sliding off the sides of the mountains between the underground blasting and the steep side hill. Lots of old foundations that had different buildings built on top of the last building that slid off the hill. The town was buzzing with shoppers. It’s 1-½ hours to Phoenix and not far from Sedona and Prescott, so this must be a popular daytrip for tourists. Parking is impossible, but they did make a large parking lot up the hill with lots of shaded free spots under solar panels, and a shuttle bus down into town, but it’s such a short walk we opted to walk into town. Dave and I watched the dogs while the women shopped. Nice people watching and the dogs were good conversation starters. After Jerome, we headed back to the park and made lunch, then a little afternoon siesta, reading and napping. Dinner was fajitas and a long night of laughing around the fire pit with the stars overhead.