Highlights: Jerome and Jerome State Park, Tuzigoot National Monument, Montezuma's Castle NM
Tuzigoot National Monument
We aim to get into Sedona the back way, through Prescott and
Cottonwood. I've never been this way before, but it must be better
than the freeway. We found gas in Chino Valley for 2.59. The Chino
Valley and Prescott areas seem to be nothing but trailers, but I
don't assume we saw the whole thing.
Between Prescott and Cottonwood we pass through the hillside tourist
trap of Jerome. We had to stop here because we have a brother in law
named Jerome. We had to send him a post card and have it postmarked
here. We also went to Jerome State Park, which surveys the mining
history of this town.
Near Cottonwood we found the
Tuzigoot National Monument,
a set of
indian ruins. It is really interesting because you can see entire
rooms from below, at eye level, and from above. There are also two
rooms you can actually walk into, one with a roof and one without.
Montezuma Castle Nat. Mon.
Also nearby we found
Montezuma's Castle National Monument.
It is
another indian dwelling build high on the side of a cliff. You see
it from a couple hundred feet below, and you can't go into it, but
it is still fascinating. The park includes a small-scale model of
the innards and a video showing what life might have been like.
Those displays help fill in the gaps.
In Sedona, we found our first internet access since the Kinko's
in West Covina several days ago. I downloaded our email by sitting
in the parking lot of the Comfort Inn. Someone clogged up my spool
with a 6 megabyte cue sheet file. Please don't do that to me while
I'm on vacation! Someone else sent me a large video file. You know
who you are! Please don't do that ... even "high speed wireless"
is not very high speed, especially when you have only 1/2 bar of
signal from some parking lot.
We got here too late to see the church on the hill while it's
open ... again. So we'll stay here in town tonight if possible,
and see the church tomorrow. But there are no available rooms in
town. We finally find a great deal on a resort room ... if we
will spend 90 minutes listening to the time-share pitch tomorrow
afternoon. We're not interested in the time share, but 69 dollars
for a suite and free steak dinner is too good to pass up. I have
not been sleeping well for several nights, and this promises to
make for a sound sleep.
