Day 49 Thursday June 16, 2022 The RV Resort where we are staying is owned by the Yavapai-Apache Nation and they also own the Cliff Castle Casino about a mile from here. They have a coffee shop inside the Casino and Hotel so we decided to try it out this morning. MISTAKE! The cinnamon roll was good but the Latte was just coffee and warm milk.
We left and went to the Montezuma Castle which is in a National Park a few miles away. We have a National Parks Senior Pass which gets us in free to National Parks. Without this card we would have had to pay $20 to get in. We bought the card years ago as soon as we became “Old Farts” and qualified. At that time the card was $10 and is good for both of us. Now the card is $80 which is still a good value if you visit National Parks. We have used it twice on this trip already and it has saved us $45.00.
Southern Sinagua farmers built the 5 story 20 room dwelling sometime between 1100 and 1300. It occupies a cliff recess 100 feet above the valley. There is a water source near the base of the cliff and the farmers used the water for their crops.
There were plaques along the walking trail below the cliffs that explained the plants and trees. Amazing how the people in that time period determined how to use the various plants for food, medicine, clothing, etc.
From here we drove several miles and passed through the town of Cottonwood and Old Town Cottonwood on our way to the old copper mining town of Jerome which sits at an elevation of 5246 feet. On the way on highway 260 we went through about a dozen traffic circles. They really are fond of traffic circles in this area or as the voice on our old car GPS called them “roundabout thingys”. They do keep the traffic flowing better than a stop and go intersection and are probably safer.
The road up to Jerome and through the small town reminded us of the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Jerome was founded in 1876 and lots of copper was mined in the area. We walked around the small town peeking in the shops and stopped and got a cup of ice cream to cool off a bit on a bench in the shade. It is a few degrees cooler up here but still about 90 by mid morning.
We stopped on our way back for fuel and just as I was starting to fill up the station attendant came out and was posting the latest price signs which was $.09 increase but I still got our fuel at the lower price because they hadn't changed it on the pumps yet. We stopped in Old Cottonwood at Adriana's Mexican Restaurant for a very good lunch. Again the portions were so large we carried half of our meals back with us for a lunch tomorrow. Lena said her Burrito was the best she has had in a long time. My Tacos were good also and the salsa for the chips was the best we have ever had. It was almost as thick as chili. All it needed was some beans in it to be chili. I got Raspberry Ice Tea, something I have never tried but it was very good. That seems to be a thing here in Mexican restaurants. When we told the waitress how much we like the salsa she gave us a small cup of it to take with us.
We got back to the RV Park about 1:30PM. Today's high is supposed to be 103 but a bit cooler tomorrow.
Day 50 Friday June 17, 2022
We drove several miles down the road to the Sedona, AZ area to see the famous Red Rocks. The photos we had seen of the Red Rocks was the reason we decided to stop and stay a few days in this area. We drove through the community of Oak Canyon on the way. It looked like it was a fairly new community. The views of the Red Rocks did not disappoint. They are beyond description. We took a lot of photos but that just doesn't do the views justice either. There were a lot of small parking areas provided by the National Parks service and dozens of marked hiking trails. If it had been a little cooler we may have tried one of the shorter hikes but we chose to view them from the parking lots and along the road.
As we got to the higher elevations again, like in the Tucson area, we began to see tall trees and more greenery. I guess the Winter snows provide the extra moisture they need to grow tall. We drove several miles up highway 89A before turning around and returning to Sedona where we stopped at View Cafe to get a snack and use their WiFi. It had a great views of some of the hills from their open air sheltered sitting area. To bad the coffee and pastries were not as good. If fact there were pitiful.
We still needed some nourishment so we stopped in Oak Canyon at Rotten Johnny's brick oven pizza restaurant. We hadn't had a brick oven pizza in a long time. It was good but we couldn't eat but half of it so we get another meal from it later.
We needed some groceries so we backtracked to the Safeway in Sedona. The wind picked up after we got back to the RV Park to about 25mph but the temperature was fairly good at 93 degrees.
Day 51 Saturday June 18, 2022 Our first stop as tourist today was 8 miles down the road to Montezuma Well. This is associated with Montezuma Castle we visited Thursday. It is a huge open depression with limestone walls and is feed with continuously flowing spring water to the tune of 1.5 million gallons a day yet the level stays the same as there is a natural drain that takes to water to a lower level that the Sinagua people used to irrigate their crops. Between 1125 and 1400 about 100-150 people live here. Some lived up on the cliffs above the well in rooms built is recesses in the limestone.
We headed into the small town of Camp Verde to visit Fort Verde State Historic Park. The town is built on land that was once part of the Fort. The fort was a base for General Cook's U.S. Army scouts and soldiers in the 1870's and 1880's. From 1865 to 1891 Camp Verde was the home to a maximum of 306 enlisted, 11 officers, 19 civilians and 36 Apache Indians.
Before we got to the Fort, Lena spotted a coffee shop name Thanks a Latte Espresso Cafe so we decided to try one more time for a decent Latte in the area. They had a pretty mural on their outside wall. The lattes actually were served in a real cup, very rare. They were the best Lattes we have had in a long time. The muffins were good also. There were several people eating breakfast also. A very busy Cafe.
The park is the best preserved example of an Indian Wars period fort in Arizona. There are three historic house museums and the Visitor Center which was the Adjutant Headquarters. None of the 43 forts in the Arizona Territory had walls around them (as depicted in TV Westerns) and the fort was never attacked. If you watch old westerns as I do you probably wondered where they got all the logs to build the forts. Well that is just a Hollywood thing, they didn't use logs because there is not many trees in the desert. So they used adobe, rocks and limestone for the building walls and any wood was used for support for the roof.
There were three Interpreters in period dress providing information on the medical treatment of the time and the weapons used during that time. They had a large collection of medical items and weapons. Several rooms in the Visitors Center/Adjutant Headquarters had a lot of historical period items and photographs.
The three other buildings were the Commanding Officer's Quarters, Bachelor Officer's Quarters and Surgeon's Quarters. All three had their own personal Outhouse and the one behind the Commanding Officer's house was a “three holer” including a low one for children.
Lena asked one of the Interpreters when was the last time it rained here. He said last Summer. I don't know if he was kidding or not but it is dry here. I asked him how did the ground water get replenished and he said they get lots of snow in the mountains in the Winter. We did see about 13 tiny rain drops on the windshield when we pulled into the parking lot at the Fort.
This is a nice small town. And we sure picked a good day as it was slightly overcast and several degrees cooler. Sure does seem good to not feel like you are walking near a furnace all the time. There was one residential section along the road into Camp Verde that had a small creek/river running behind the houses and these houses had green grass in the yards and tall shade trees. We wondered if they pumped water from the stream to keep their grass alive. Across the road were several fields with watermelons, corn and other crops and we actually saw a lawn mower. Rare in these parts.
We returned to the RV Park and while we were eating the remainder of our pizza from yesterday we actually got some really good rain for over 30 minutes. It washed off some of the dust but probably by tomorrow the ground will be dusty again.
I failed to mention when we were in New Mexico about all the Tumbleweeds we saw. If you have watched some of the old Westerns on TV you probably have seen them blowing across the old plains. We saw lots of them, some blowing across the highway, one blew under the motorhome and several were in the first New Mexico campground we were in.
Day 52 Sunday June 19, 2022 We went back into Camp Verde this morning to Thanks a Latte Espresso Cafe for a Father's Day breakfast. We both had a Latte and Ricotta Waffles. The cafe opens at 8AM and there was a line with about 20 people in line when the doors open. We noticed yesterday and today that most of the patron here are “old farts” like us. Usually a coffee shop has mostly younger people, but this cafe also serves meals so maybe that is the difference.
We will be leaving here in the morning for Kanab, Utah about 250 miles North of here. We thought we were going to have to detour about 85 miles out of our way due to the Pipeline Fire in Arizona. They had a long section of the road we need to travel on closed but it has been reopened.
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