2017 Travel out West

Jerome and the Ghost Town Yesterday, we went to Jerome, which is about 30 miles from our location.   Jerome is a mining town that has been converted to an arts and craft shopping center.   Silver and copper were mined here at one time but of course all the mines have closed now.   There is still plenty of equipment left behind and it is interesting to look and see how this area was developed and the hardships that must have occurred during that time.   The shops that have taken over are interesting if you are into that kind of thing.   I guess I am not because I set on the benches outside most of the time.   There are about four blocks that has been developed or preserved now.   The interesting thing is they all go up the hill instead of running level with each other.   Just think of a piece of paper with four lines.   Start at the bottom and go up the paper and that is the way Jerome is laid out.   It is on the side of a mountain and the structures are dug into the mountain

We got early start the second day in order to sightsee before the heat got so bad.  We went to Montezuma Wells which is a natural fed lake in the middle of the desert.  The Native Americans used to live here millions of years ago and the made their  houses of mud bricks and had them under cliffs.  There is no fish in the lake but plenty of leeches, they say.  Also other animals such as the coyote and  fox visit the lake even now.  The depth of the lake is unknown and I think they said it was about 180 feet/yards across. After leaving Montezuma Wells went went to Red Rock Canyon State Park.  We have been there before but decided to go again and give the state of Arizona another 14 bucks to enter.  Thee is nothing there to do but walk and hike some trails.  There are places to have a picnic but we did neither.  We did get to see a free movie about Sedona's history which was interesting and it was cool in the building.  We road the Red Rock loop upper and lower and took photos of the