Conner Hotel - Jerome, AZ

Gas Pump--Jerome, AZ

Building ruins--Jerome, AZ

Rock formations around Sedona

What a beautiful place

Sedona, AZ: Mike was up early and off to the GMC dealer in Cottonwood. I hung out at the RV park and took care of some things I had to deal with. This park is nestled among some old growth desert sycamores, cottonwoods, and pines. At night though the herons roost in the trees—some of them right over us. And they’re so vocal all night. It is entertaining. I was curious as to how Tom Mix died at that spot we stopped at out in the middle of nowhere yesterday, so I googled and found out that he was driving his car along this road (probably dirt back in 1940) and the bridge over the wash (now named Tom Mix wash) was out and he couldn’t stop in time. Workers on the bridge said that the car went into the wash and the metal suitcase on the back seat slammed into the back of his head and crushed his skull and broke his neck. That would do it. Mike finally returned around 12:30 from the GMC dealer. Again, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. They even called Detroit and they didn’t know what it could be. The error codes showed communication errors. They want us to come back with the fifth-wheel in tow and take it for a test drive. So we’ll do that when we leave here on Thursday. We had to drive back to Cottonwood to an RV dealer to get a part we needed so we went a little further and checked out the little, historic town of Jerome. A former mining town, it sits on the side of a steep mountain with little houses jutting precipitously over the edge. After that we headed back to Sedona to Walgreens to get my prescriptions filled. Dropped them off and went across the street to a little strip mall and had lunch at Casa Bonita—a Mexican restaurant my daughter recommended. A cute little place and the food was good. Then drove the scenic Oak Creek Canyon road up to Flagstaff. What a beautiful drive through this amazing canyon of heavily forested pines and beautiful rock formations. Climbing up out of the canyon was pretty scary for me since the road was right on the edge of a precipitous drop-off. The view at the top was amazing though. Came back on interstate 17 through a beautiful pine forest and when we started back down the pines disappeared and the hills were covered with cedars. We went through about 4 ecosystems on this little drive. Got off interstate 17 on Route 179 and went through the pretty little town of Oak Creek. I like this pretty little place better than Sedona. Drove through some amazing residential areas and then back to the RV park. The herons were in fine form causing a ruckus up in the trees fighting for their roosting spot. Went up to 88 today. Chills down pretty good at night.