Third Time's the Charm Trip: Sunny Sedona, Arizona

Ok, it took what seemed like forever for me to get that last post completed so I am going to try to get you caught up on our week in Arizona before too much time goes by.

While in Arizona, we spent several days in the Sedona area. Our RV Park was in Camp Verde, a town that is located in the geographic center of the state of Arizona. We drove to Clarkdale and took a four hour train ride through the Verde Canyon and viewed some spectacular gold, bronze and red colored towering rock formations composed of limestone, mudstone, sandstone and some conglomerates along with some volcanic layers. During our journey, the train attendants pointed out numerous formations in the canyon shaped like a turtle, monkeys, and gargoyles. We also viewed some Sinagua Indian ruins built into the overhangs of the mountains and dating back to 600 B.C. There were panoramic views of two national forests, the Coconino National Forest and the Prescott National Forest. We learned about the history of this railroad and how it was originally built to transport copper ore that had been mined in the area. We were able to leave our rail car and move to an open-air car to take pictures and better appreciate the geology, flora and fauna of the canyon.

View of our train as it rounded a bend in the

canyon

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If you click on this image to enlarge it, you just might

be able to see what looks like a gargoyle on the peak.

Red rocks of the canyon viewed from the train.

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More red rocks of the canyon viewed from the train.

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It rained during the beginning of our train trip

and on our way back to the train station,

we saw a waterfall.

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A view of the river going through the Verde Canyon.

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On another day, we drove up to the town of Jerome on a road with many curves and switchbacks. Jerome sits up on a high hill. It was a copper mining town that was booming from the late 1800s until the early 1950s. In its heyday, the copper mines were producing three million pounds of copper a month. It was a town with a population that grew to 15,000 and then dwindled to only a few hundred after World War II when the demand for copper slowed. In the late 1930s, a dynamite explosion in one of the mines cracked tunnels that were as deep as 4,800 feet below the surface. This caused shifting on the mountain and a number of the town’s buildings began to slide down the slope of the hill. Entire sections of the business district collapsed and the town jail moved downhill 225 feet and landed in the middle of a road below. To this day, there are still 88 miles of tunnels under the town and there are also four geological faults in the area. Those who stayed in Jerome or moved into the town in later years have carved a niche in the area. They are artists, craft people, musicians, writers, business owners, and historians. They have turned the small town into a tourist destination and artistic community. Because Jerome had once been Arizona’s largest ghost town, community members have made Jerome a Halloween destination with ghost walks and Spook week in October. We had fun trudging up the hills of the town’s streets and popping into all of the little galleries and shops. You can still view remnants of buildings that collapsed in the 1930s.

View of the hillside town of Jerome, AZ

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Remnants of a building after a dynamite

explosion in one of the mines in the 1930s

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We also toured the Douglas Mansion in Jerome which was owned by a family of mining entrepreneurs. It was built in 1916 and had a wine cellar, steam heat, central vacuuming, and a marble shower in addition to the many other rooms in the mansion. While many of the mine workers lived in poverty, the owners of the mine lived like kings and queens. It was often unoccupied by the owners and when the mine closed in the 1950s and family members grew old and died, those who inherited the mansion had no desire to live in it. At one point in the early 1960s the mansion was put up for sale for only $10,000 but no one expressed interest in buying it. Finally, the family donated the mansion to the state of Arizona and it became a state park in 1965.

Douglas Mansion

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Old mining cars on display at the Douglas Mansion

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Rig to lower miners into one of

the old mining shafts

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We spent one day in Sedona which has the most breathtaking view of giant red rock formations as its backdrop.

Sedona, AZ is in the foreground of this image.

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A view of Main Street in Sedona, AZ

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Before going downtown, we drove on some of the back roads to view more of the rock formations and stopped at some viewing areas to take pictures.

The next few images were taken off the beaten

path in Sedona.

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Once we were in the downtown Sedona area, we found many shops, restaurants and jeep tour companies. We had an interesting encounter when we stopped at a “tourist information” center. We only wanted information about restaurants in the area but instead, we encountered a huckster who wanted us to tour a vacation resort and offered us a $120 jeep tour for $20. When we said no to that, he offered us $100 cash and a complimentary dinner at the resort restaurant. We said no that was not something we were interested in doing and he got ticked off at us! That was when we determined that this was not a State of Arizona or Chamber of Commerce tourist information center. We were more careful after that when looking for information centers.

We drove to Tlaquepaque, a high end shopping district on the outskirts of Sedona. There were many art galleries with original oil paintings and sculptures in stone and bronze. We found clothing boutiques, jewelers, a music box shop, restaurants, a toy store, Christmas shop and cookware shop. A musician, who was playing an instrument called a slack stick, was performing and selling CDs of his music in the middle of the shopping plaza's courtyard.

Courtyard at Tlaquepaque

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Horse sculpture

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Young boy with his dog outside an art gallery

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Pete sitting next to Mark Twain in the

Tlaquepaque courtyard.

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Another view of the courtyard

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When we were leaving Sedona, we stopped in Hillside where there were more places to shop and restaurants to dine. We had a late lunch at a restaurant called the Hudson. There were huge floor to ceiling windows that gave you a view of the mountains from your table. The food was excellent too!

View of the mountains from our table at

The Hudson restaurant

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Panorama from the restaurant's deck

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On our last day in the Sedona area, we toured three places under the direction of the National Park Service. They were; Montezuma Castle, Montezuma Well and the V Bar V Heritage Site.

At Montezuma Castle, we viewed a five-story, 20 room dwelling built by Sinagua farmers between 1100 and 1300. It is located about 100 feet above a valley. Due to the deterioration that has taken place over the years, you are no longer able to hike up to the dwelling but you can still get pretty close to it. It was given the name Montezuma Castle because early settlers assumed it had been built by the Aztecs. Even though it was determined to be of Native American origin, the name was never changed.

Montezuma Castle

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Cut-away model of what Montezuma Castle may have

looked like when occupied by the Sinagua tribe

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Montezuma Well is quite a geologic anomaly. Resembling a small lake, it is a volcanic area of rock that once protruded from the ground. Over tens of thousands of years, water percolated through the rock. Under this volcanic area was a wall of basalt that acted like a dam that would force water to the surface. Water then eroded an underground cavern and eventually, the area that was protruding from the ground collapsed and created a sinkhole. The sinkhole filled with water creating Montezuma Well. Scientists have been able to determine that every day 1.5 million gallons of water flow into the well, yet the level of water in the well never rises. Thousands of years ago, the Sinagua tribe channeled the water into a canal to irrigate acres of corn, beans, and squash in the valley below. That canal still exists today and helps to keep the water in the well at a constant level. Scientists have also determined that the well is the home of five species not found anywhere else on our planet. There is a miniature shrimp-like amphipod, a water scorpion, a tiny snail, a leech and a type of one-celled plant called a diatom that only exist in this well.

Panorama of Montezuma Well

(Missing from this image is the Sinagua dwelling shown below.

It is located further to the left on the well's wall)

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Sinagua dwelling built into the wall of Montezuma's Well

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At the V Bar V Heritage Site we viewed petroglyphs on the side of a large rock formation that archaeologists believe were made sometime between1150-1400 A.D. Over 1,000 petroglyphs appear on thirteen different panels of rock. An on-site docent provided a wealth of interpretive information about the petroglyphs explaining that one carving appeared to show a pregnant mother followed by images that illustrated the circle of life. Other images on the panels resembled the four seasons of the year. We were told that after a long period of observation by a volunteer archaeologist, it was determined that one area of the petroglyphs seemed to resemble a type of calendar. On certain days of the year, such as the summer solstice or the vernal equinox, the sun would shine through a crack in the rocks where other rocks had been strategically placed by what is believed to have been the Sinagua people. These rock gnomons cast a shadow right through a petroglyph of a particular season on a particular day, similar to a sundial. So this sundial does not tell the time of day, it tells the time of year. Archaeologists believe this helped the native people determine things like when to plant crops in the spring. It was really fascinating to view the petroglyphs. We were reminded by the docent that these were interpretations of the petroglyphs by archaeologists and that years from now, it may be determined that the images represent something totally different.