Sightseeing Jerome and Sedona

 After our night in Cottonwood, we proceeded to the little town of Jerome, which used to be a booming copper mining town in its heyday.  The town is at surprising elevation of 5,200 feet.  The elevation change in Arizona is so dramatic in these parts.

The town has retained its sweet old mining town facade, however, everything that we saw had been rebuilt. Jerome was/is notorious for its sliding buildings – due to weak infrastructure exacerbated by extensive mining, the town literally slid away in the early 1900s!

We went to the old Douglas mansion to see where the Douglas family lived during the peak mining years.  We saw a lot of beautiful stones and complex copper models showing the major copper lodes as well as the miles of tunnels that were dug by the miners. 

The town of Jerome itself is incredibly charming, full of little stores and the remains of the few historic buildings that survived the (man-induced) landslides.  It is just so tiny!

The views are great though…

From Jerome we headed further north still to Sedona, a city known in Arizona for its red rocks and its spas and resorts.  

In Sedona we had a lovely lunch at Creekside Restaurant, which had nice views on the outside patio.

 Arnold Palmers.

 Our views from the patio.

 The food was delicious.  The salad was very light.

Then we headed to the Rock Chapel, a Catholic chapel built into the stone, made of metal and glass.   I could only get these pictures from the car, so excuse the reflection:

We got out and took some pictures of the surrounding area:

 It was a really beautiful day.  The sky was so blue and vivid against the dry red rock:

 After the chapel, we went to Cathedral Rock, where we took a few pictures from the parking lot.  I am a bit embarrassed to admit that we did not even attempt to climb this…it was about 98 degrees in Sedona and by mid afternoon the sun was just relentlessly beating down on us (I felt hot even while we were in the car with the air conditioner blasting).  We felt that this picture (from the parking lot) was sufficient!

Then we went to check out Bell Rock and Cathedral Butte, two massive rock formations a bit farther south. 

From there, we headed home, pretty exhausted.  I was also convinced that I had sustained sunburn to my forearms, merely from sitting in the car and feeling the sun sizzle.  I think in those two days I had tanned about two or three shades.

My sister told me that in Arizona drivers park their cars rather sporadically in the parking lot (not necessarily closest to the entrance) – and that’s because shade is such a premium that even if there is a wisp of a branch or a hint of shade the driver is willing to take it.  I find that pretty funny.  Perhaps there is a thing as too much sunshine…