Montezuma Castle and Jerome, Arizona

This past Tuesday we decided to get out of Mesa to escape the 90 degree heat. You don't have to drive very far to experience cooler weather, just head for someplace with a higher altitude. Jerome's elevation is at 5066 feet above sea level so its considerably cooler than Mesa which is at 1240 feet.

Before you arrive at Jerome there is a roadside attraction called The Montezuma Castle National Monument. Perched high on the side of a cliff are the reconstructed remains of an ancient adobe cliff house that has housed generations of natives dating back around 1000 years.

For a reference of scale, check out the size of the workers that are performing repairs the structure.

This cross-section drawing shows how the 20 room, 4000 square foot complex is anchored to the face of the cliff.

Yvonne posing by an Arizona Sycamore tree.

Like many other Arizona towns, Jerome got it's start as a mining camp. Today the town relies mostly on tourism. There are plenty of bars, restaurants and souvenir shops.

We ate at Vaqueros Grill,  Great Mexican food and wicked IPA.

Local artwork at $350 a pop. I might go into business making these things.

Yvonne recently attended a wildlife photography workshop in Leisure World. The instructor explained various ways to capture photos of wild animals in their natural habitat.  One method was to simply set up a tripod and camera and wait for an animal to enter your photo frame.  Well, just as she predicted, and before a minute passed,  this magnificent rabbit made an appearance.

Tombstone & Bisbee Arizona

Hooray!!! Yvonne and Sandi have resurrected our weekly outings. 

This time, it's an overnight trip to Tombstone and Bisbee.  Tombstone is a southwestern Arizona ghost town that is totally into keeping the famous "1881 Gunfight at the OK Corral" memory alive.

The first order of business was to get directions from the locals. These two guys were simply trying to hand out copies of their Awake Magazine when the girls turned them into instant tour guides.

Deputy US Marshal Sheriff Virgil Earp and his deputies and brothers Wyatt and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday wait for suspected stagecoach robbers Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury. It's all part of the daily reenactments of the famous gunfight that left Clanton and the McLaury brothers dead.

The four of us enjoying drinks at Big Nose Kate"s Saloon and Brothel.

Crystal Palace barmaid sandwich.

Two bad hombres waiting for their turns on the horsy ride.

Boot Hill is a historic cemetery just outside of Tombstone. The graves are real and the grave markers are apparently realistic recreations of the originals.

Not sure how Big Nose Kate got her nickname.

Sandi was wrongly served Bourbon with coke. People outside of Canada don't know what Rye Whiskey is.

Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Willy Nelson all rolled up into one.

Sunset photo taken from our room at the Tombstone Grand Hotel.

Bright and early, after a 9AM breakfast, we're off to Bisbee, Arizona. Bisbee is a thriving tourist town of 6000 residents about 8 miles from the Mexico border.

Although the State of Arizona is a "open-carry" state, many establishments choose not to allow firearms or weapons on their premisses.

We did not sample the food in Bisbee because of the time of day, although there were several restaurants that looked tempting.  Instead, we stopped for some traditional southwestern delicacies at Carls Jr in Tucson on the way home.

This is the Lavender Open Pit mine just outside the Bisbee town limits. Over a 24 year period, the pit grew to be 900 ft deep and miners had displaced 86 million tons of ore that averaged 0.7% copper, or about 600,000 tons of refined copper, with gold and silver as byproducts. Production stopped in 1974. Thank you Wikipedia.

Copper laden ore sample (Brochantite) from the Lavender open pit mine.

Whimsy decor on the outside wall of the Bisbee Museum.

Mesa yard plants

It's starting to get hot in Mesa. Into the 90s for the next week or so. The citrus trees are blooming so it's time to pick the remaining fruit that might still be on the trees.