Guess who our neighbor is??

Another day, another campground. We left the Grand Canyon in the middle of this morning. We headed south from the Canyon and took a scenic route that took us to Flagstaff through the Kaibab National Forest. In Flagstaff, we caught the beginning of Interstate 17 and headed into the Coconino National Forest. It was all pretty but more of the same. As we headed south, we first gained altitude to a little more than 8,000 feet and then started to lose altitude. By the time we turned off 17, we were down to 3,200 feet. The campground we thought was in Cornville turned out to be in Page Springs. We found the campground down this rather small crude road. The entrance was off a corner and down a steep driveway into an even smaller open space. This is not as small a campground as Torrey Utah but not a whole lot bigger. There is a pretty good sized stream running along the edge of the CG that was full of red silt which had washed into the stream from a lot of rain that they have had over the last few days.

They didn’t know we were coming and claimed they had checked the Coast to Coast reservation system just this morning. They logged back in and did find us there. They were surprised that we had made our reservations 3 weeks ago because they check it every other day and haven’t seen us. We eventually checked in. Since the campground is so small, there wasn’t a space we could put the trailer but they had us put it in another campsite they didn’t think they would need while we were there. Soon we had the car unloaded (we are getting pretty good at it) and had moved the trailer to its designated spot, backed it in and unhooked it. Getting into our campsite was a little more difficult as everyone had parked their car in the road. The gentleman next door came out and moved his car giving us just enough room to squeeze into the space.

Then we headed downtown and had lunch. As we left Cottonwood, we were driving through the desert and could see 4 thunderstorms scattered across the desert. It was really weird to see these storms with lightning and rain moving across the desert. The space between the storms was blue sky and fluffy white clouds. We had seen a sign for apples, peaches and blackberries so we turned down the road. Immediately the road turned to dirt and the next sign we saw said the orchard was 3 ½ miles. We drove carefully along the dirt road and passed through a cattleguard that had water flowing through and around it. I hesitated a bit there due to the signs we had seen everywhere warning against driving through flooded places in roads during storms. I did continue on and finished the drive. The road got worse the further we went but it never got bad enough to turn back.

Soon we passed a school and arrived at the orchard after passing a line of willow trees lining the road. The orchard turned out to be someone’s back yard project. The spaces between the trees had not been mowed and were waist high and the trees seemed to have no order whatsoever. It also turned out to be a pick your own. The fruit looked quite small and the road took us up someone’s driveway where we were greeted by a large dog that looked hungrily at us. There was a piece of handwritten paper that said “Blow Horn” but we looked at each other and turned around and left. As we climbed out of the valley, we noticed a storm headed directly for us. I drove as fast as I could to get by the flooded road before the storm reached us. Upon reaching the flooded area, there was a young woman in a bikini and her small son playing in the water.

We made it back to camp and never did get any rain at camp. We are back in the hot desert. The temperature was 100 degrees when we returned and the camper was hot. We hooked up the connections and turned on the air conditioner. Several hours went by before the camper cooled down. There are several things to do here. There are a couple of National Monuments and some Indian museums. We will see what tomorrow brings. Sometime, I also have to plan our next few stops.

We slept in. I slept well for a change. I think it is the change to a lower altitude. I woke up a couple of times but went right back to sleep. In the morning, we went in search of somewhere for Cheryl to get her hair fixed. We drove around and finally found a place that looked busy. We went in and Cheryl got an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.

We then looked for a drug store to pick up some medicine that I have been out of for a few days. I have had trouble finding it. I can find low doses (50 mg) but I need 600 mg/day so the smaller pills don’t work. Not only did I find the bigger pills but they were on sale. I paid less for a 6 month supply than I do at home for 6 weeks. I bought every bottle they had.

Buoyed by our dual successes, we headed off to find a winery/vineyard and Montezuma’s Castle National Monument. We happened upon the winery first. Like everything else around here, all you see is a sign telling you about the winery pointing down a dirt road. After a considerable drive, you go down into a valley between high points of land and there is the winery/vineyard. A green oasis in the middle of a desert. There were rows of grapevines radiating out in every direction. The sign had said that tours were available only on Fridays and Saturdays so we were expecting only a tasting room. We were surprised when we happened upon a tour going on. We stopped around its periphery and listened. The tour giver invited us to join the tour so we jumped at the chance.

She was explaining about how the new vines were planted and how they grew. She said that most of the vines that they made the wine out of were 10 to 15 years old and that “old” vines were usually around 40 years old. She was using vines of grapes used to make Pinot Grigio. The grapes were nearly ripe and she handed out some to taste. They were very tasty although small with seeds. She showed us another grape that was new and just growing. They were not in the vineyard yet but just growing in a side bed. She was trying them out to see how they grew in this environment.

Then she took us into the aging room and talked about the oak barrels and the stainless steel barrels. They use oak for the reds but only use stainless for the whites. She said that the oak imparts too heavy a flavor to the whites. When we hit the tasting room, we noticed the light crispy flavor of the Chardonnay rather than the heavier oak flavor you usually find.

The tasting room was a bit of a different experience too. They charge for the tasting. There was a special rate because we were with the tour group. It was $10 for 8 wines and they provided a cheese and cracker plate and a bowl of dried fruit and nuts and you got to keep the glass. They had a cellar of about 15 wines. It was a fine cellar of small volume wines. They were made without the large amounts of sulphites and preservatives found in large volume wines distributed in grocery stores (required by the stores to increase the longevity of the wines during wide distribution and storage). Their wines ran from $26 to $46 a bottle. The highest price was for a Petite Syrah the total production for a year was 18 cases.

Cheryl and I each picked 8 wines. We both picked our favorites and split the others so we could try most everything. There were 3 whites (chardonnay, pinot Grigio and a moscat sweet dessert wine). There was a wide variety of reds starting with some lighter reds and working towards the Petite Syrah which was the darkest and strongest flavored wine. I am more of a red wine person but my favorite of the bunch was the Chardonnay. It had a light crisp fruity flavor (without the oaks) and was by far my favorite. My second favorite was the Petite Syrah (of course, it was the most expensive).

We bought a bottle of Chardonnay, packed up our glasses, said goodbye to all of our new friends and headed for the car. We got out to the road and headed towards Montezuma’s Castle. We stopped at a farmer’s stand, the first we had seen since Julian, California but left because we didn’t see anything we were interested in. Soon we passed another bigger one but said we would catch it on the way back.

As we turned into the road to the park, we passed a tent selling Indian Fry Bread. We also said we would catch it on the way back because we knew we haven’t been able to get by one yet. The museum at the castle was small and simple and we were soon off to the ruins. The park had a paved path in a loop. There were a lot of signs to explain the ruins and the lives of the Indians that had built them. A major difference here was that the rock that the dwellings were built in was the soft white layer near the top of the hill. There were a lot of caves that were incorporated into the cliff houses and the dwelling was 4 stories high.

The signs showed us how the Indians built the first dwelling and then began a long program of enlarging it. They built the upper layers first and then built down the side of the cliff. There were several smaller shelves that held storage rooms and their farming was done on a river bed below the buildings. Like the Mesa Verdeans, they started with pit houses and a basket economy. As time went on, they began to make pottery and started building stone dwellings later moving them up into the cliffs.

The main buildings were in good shape but the outbuildings were not. There were pieces of walls near the ground that were only a couple of layers of stone and there were caves with only a few stones left. There were signs all over warning of the dangerous inhabitants of the desert: rattle snakes, tarantulas, scorpions ET. Al. There were also a lot of signs warning about the squirrels. The claim was that the squirrels carried some kind of plague and that people should avoid them no matter how cute they are. I didn’t see anyone feeding them but there were a couple of crowds around squirrels with people taking their pictures.

We finished up with a few more pictures of moths and headed for the gate. There was a pot luck supper back at camp and we wanted to meet some of the people staying there. We thought it was at 6 but as we were making biscuits to take, we noticed people headed for the club house and discovered that the starting time was 5:30. We finished the biscuits and got there just as everyone was finishing up. That didn’t stop them from eating the biscuits though.

I tried to make some reservations over the computer but the signal was not strong enough and it kept cutting out without making the final reservation (I think). I will have to take the computer elsewhere to try again. It seemed like the time was moving slowly but all of a sudden, I am looking at reservations in late August and September with October in the back of my mind to make the final connections to get home. Wow! We are closing in on half way.

We didn’t get up very early and headed for the Sizzler again for lunch. This time we only got the salad bar as a meal and the salad bar was just too much. Of course, the salad bar included onion rings and chicken wings. One interesting thing was that the salad bar had several different things on it that weren’t there the last time we went. On the negative side, there were no onions on the salad bar! Can you imagine that? When the waitress brought our drinks, I commented that I had never seen a salad bar without onions. She asked if they were out and I told her that they were never there to start with (there were no empty containers). She said she would get me some but as things work out, it took so long, I was eating onion rings and chicken wings when she finally came and said there were onions on the salad bar. She commented that people that are hired to work there should at least be able to speak English. She said she could not make the woman understand that there were no onions on the salad bar. It took so long to make her understand that it was too late when they finally arrived.

One of the residents of the area we are in grew up on the same street as Cheryl and I. We called them and invited them over for dinner and tonight is the night. Cheryl made a veggie platter with an avocado ranch dip for munchies. The first course was a fresh bread and EVOO with pepper as a dipping oil. Then we had Arroyo con Pollo (a Puerto Rican chicken with rice). We had a really nice visit and did some serious catching up. It was late when they left so we cleaned up and went to bed.

One very interesting piece of information came to light during this visit. It seems that we have a very famous neighbor near our campground….John McCain. He lives just up the road down a long dirt road out in the back on 40 or 50 acres of desert. He claims his residence as Cottonwood (the large town about 8 miles down the road) but actually lives out here in Cornville. It must be that his mailing address is a post office box in Cottonwood. How ‘bout that?

We got up late again this morning, grabbed a quick bite for breakfast and headed out. We headed down 89A and first came to Tuzigoot; another puebloan village. This one is not a cliff dwelling but sits on top of a hill and consists of a “Condo”. There were 110 rooms in this dwelling. Most of them were connected but there were some separated dwelling groups. The dwelling was 3 stories high and one section of the high building is still there. It has a rooftop open area where the residents could work in the sunshine and also had a grassy area between 2 sections of the buildings. It is well preserved and has a recreation of a housing unit in the visitor’s center.

This area is famous for copper mining. There is a large copper mine just down the road from Tuzigoot. In the early years the mine was operating, the tailings were made into a slurry and piped into the valley. This has made an extremely flat valley floor. That is no longer done and the valley floor has been stabilized.

We drove up by the mine and headed up to Jerome. Jerome is a town that was originally a mining town. It is up on a very tall mountain at 7,000 feet and is built into the side of the mountain. When the mines closed it pretty much became a ghost town but it was eventually brought back by hippies (so we were told) because the properties could be had for peanuts. They used the community to build their craft and artistic business and made an artistic community. Once the popularity began to grow, other business came in and now there are several restaurants and bars and a lot of shops. Every step you take in Jerome is either up hill or down hill (steeply). The view from here is spectacular.

We had lunch in a place called the “Haunted Burger”. We had a table right by the window looking out over the whole valley. We watched a half dozen thunderstorms roll down the valley, lightning reaching out in all directions. While we were waiting, we met a family from California. Based on our accents, they asked us where we were from. When we answered Maine, they asked where our car was parked. They were playing the license plate game and didn’t have Maine. When we got to our table, we could see our car 2 streets down (hill). They were sitting near us so we called them over and pointed out our car. They were thrilled to get Maine. It was funny because of the lay of the real estate made our car the only car (or should I say ca’) visible from that window.

We visited a really neat yarn shop. Cheryl had a great time in there. She looked at everything in the store, spent considerable time talking to the proprietor, met a couple from Connecticut and talked to another customer from Phoenix who had come all the way up here to get help on some project she was working on.

We soon tired of the tourist trap scene and headed back to camp. On the way we decided to drive up to Sedona. Sedona was one of our reasons for coming here and we were into the last day and still hadn’t gotten there. We drove by our road (and John McCain’s road) and drove up to Sedona. As we got closer, the sky closed; the lightening flashed, the thunder boomed and soon the rain pelted down so hard traffic almost came to a standstill. The rain fell so hard that as the wipers (on high) passed over the windshield, it was completely obliterated as soon as the wiper went by.

There are 2 lanes in the road going into Sedona. The rain was falling so hard that you couldn’t see. At some point, I noticed that there was a line of cones between the two lanes. Then there was a sign that said the right lane must turn right and to emphasize the point, there was a policeman standing between the lanes forcing the right lane to go right. OK, I get the message so right goes I. I will just pull a u-turn and head back into Sedona. There turns out to be a solid lane of traffic going out of town and another solid line of traffic for 3 miles trying to get back into town.

This road runs out to I 17 which will connect up with the road back to our camp so we write off Sedona and head home. It is still raining pretty hard but we can see the red rocks through the rain so the trip to Sedona is not a total loss.

When we got off the interstate, we found a Starbucks and took a break for coffee. Then we went home and started getting ready for moving day. We watched the Olympics until late. We got up early and prepared to break camp. The slide worked again. I worry about it every time I put it out or try to put it back in. We……Whoa! We just had a huge thunderstorm with lightning, thunder, rain and hail. I turned everything off and took a break while the Americans beat the French in the 4 X 100 rely in a fun upset.

We spent some time visiting with our neighbors and then loaded up the car and headed out. We headed back up onto the Colorado Plateau and worked our way from 3,000 feet to more than 6,000 feet. We drove a little more than 7 hours and were a little ahead of our planned schedule until we realized that we changed time zones and lost an hour and then realized that our campground was 20 miles past Albuquerque. It didn’t matter as the office in the campground closed at 4. They left us a note telling us where to camp.

We didn’t totally set up as we will be leaving early in the morning to get some work done on the camper. The Camping World of Albuquerque is on the western side of the city and we are on the eastern side of the city about 25 miles away. Figures!

Well, I guess I will send this off and start fresh with the Albuquerque chapter.

See ya