Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023 - Dead Horse Ranch State Park Day 3

Deb here. Another hot and sunny day ahead, so after a lovely breakfast of eggs, English muffins (yes, I brought a toaster along, quite decadent) and fruit, we hatched a plan to make the most of the cool morning.

We started with a visit to Tuzigoot National Monument, which is only a few minutes away from our campground. Tuzigoot is an interesting place that John and I visited before but were happy to return to. It’s a Pueblo ruin above the Verde River that had 110 rooms built by the Sinagua people, between 1125 and 1400 AD. It was excavated between 1933-35, and then the ruins were prepared for public display, reconstructing the stone work. Cote and Benny went with us, and we all enjoyed the walk and the info.

We then headed back to our campsites, with a stop at one of the park lagoons to walk around the lagoon and down by the Verde River. Several folks out fishing, and lots of activity on a sunny Saturday of a long weekend. Lunch was next, eating in the shade of Dave and Deb’s canopy.

In the afternoon we left the dogs in Deb and Dave’s air conditioned trailer, and the five of us headed out. Dave and John dropped Deb, Carmen, and I in Clarkdale at the Arizona Copper Art Museum. Clarkdale had its Clarktoberfest going on, so lots of booths, food, drink, and music on the blocked off Main Street. After checking that out we entered the museum, which had an overwhelming amount of info concerning the history of copper, and rooms filled with copper artifacts. Quite a niche museum!

While we were there, Dave and John went to the Jerome State Historic Park. John and I were there last year, but it was a new stop for Dave, and the guys really enjoyed their visit. The Jerome mine was owned by the same company as our Bisbee mine so there were a lot of similarities in their history. Great museum.

We'd hoped to meet up at the Clarkdale Brewery, but it was packed due to Clarktoberfest.  We opted to return to the campground, eat sandwiches for dinner (along with some tasty gin and tonics) and then s'mores over the firepit for dessert. Another great day!