Still near Sedona

We’re still here, halfway between Sedona and Cottonwood. Now there are SIX of us! Jeanne’s sister Joanne has come up from Chandler (near Phoenix) for the weekend, and Bernii and Donnis have arrived in their brand new PleasureWay van camper.     

Jeanne, Joanne and I went rock-hunting above Cottonwood. We didn’t make it all the way back to where the “good” rocks were supposed to be; the road just kept getting rougher and rougher so we stopped almost 2 miles from the target area, but we still found some interesting rocks there.  We were way above the town!   

Yesterday we  went to Old Town Cottonwood which we enjoyed immensely…very cute town area just a few blocks long, with interesting shops. Of course we loved Jim & Ellen’s Rock Shop the best! They had lots and lots of pretty rocks from all over, and their prices seemed really good too. A lot of the AZ rocks were only $1 each.   We then went on to Jerome, a copper & gold-mining town perched way up on the side of the mountain above Cottonwood. The homes step right up the mountainside (and we wondered how often any of them slide down??) We had a very good lunch at the Haunted Hamburger.   We climbed a lot of steps to get to it., only to find we could have parked right in front and skipped all those stairs! I made them drive up to pick me up afterward. Here’s the view from our table out on the patio.   

Deb left her camper door open and our friendly Grackle hopped right up the steps and wandered in to check it out!  She distracted him with a Dorito so he came back out to get it.

The only bad thing about this great boondocking site is that there are lots of foxtails all around. They have barbed seed heads and can work their way into the skin of dogs anywhere on their body (most often between the toes or in the ears) and cause nasty infections and even can work their way from the nose into the dog’s brain or be inhaled into a lung and cause death! Yikes.

We went to Tuzigoot National Monument but I wasn’t able to climb up to the ruins. We’re hoping to get to Montezuma’s Castle and it may be the same story there….darn this knee!

I’m making gingerbread sourdough pancakes for 6 this morning….that’ll be a first! I’ve never tried to make such a big batch before.