Battle of the Towns! Winner: Jerome, AZ
We don’t love Sedona. We really wanted to love Sedona, but it didn’t work out. We’d heard great things and the weather is ideal, so we were very excited to see for ourselves, but we were less than impressed. It felt like Fisherman’s Wharf in the Red Rocks.
Maybe it was a set up from the outset—the night before we drove to town, we stayed at a campground where the smell of vault toilet was overwhelming. Maybe it was the fact that we hit Sedona the same week that kids across Arizona were out of school for fall break, so it was overrun with tourists. Though from what we understand, Sedona is a town of 10,000 people that gets four million visitors a year, so it’s always a busy place made to feel even busier by the traffic circles that seem to be everywhere! Definitely not our next home.
On the plus side we really enjoyed the scenery and the hiking—both of those were exceptional. There are trails everywhere leading to amazing rock formations and stunning vistas. We had perfect weather and went on three wonderful long hikes during our visit. Once we left Oak Creek Canyon and its pervasive smell, we found some nice dispersed camp spots off of forest road 525 with pretty views and no vault toilets! We’d actually come back to the area for the hiking, especially since we now know where to find decent camping, but we’ll skip the town next time.
We stopped by Montezuma Castle National Monument on our way out of the area to see the best preserved Ancient Pueblo dwelling in the entire southwest. It’s set into a limestone cliff face and is five stories tall. It was built and inhabited by the Sinagua for several hundred years before they dispersed to other parts of the region. Pretty spectacular. On our way to our campsite we found a roadside farmstand manned by a very friendly gentleman and loaded up on chilies. We had hoped before we left San Francisco that we would find lots of farmstands, but we haven’t, even though we almost always take the backroads. This was only the second stand we’ve come across, so we were really excited.
Our friend Tweedie tipped us off to a little town not far from Sedona—Jerome. We loved it! Jerome is an old mining town precariously perched on the side of a mountain. Parts of it have slid down the mountain over the years but it has retained much of its quaint architecture and twisty streets. Like many old mining towns, today Jerome is essentially an artist’s colony. We spent hours strolling the streets, poking around galleries, and eating good food! It was such a hit, I thought Alanna was going to try to buy a lot on which to park the Minnie and declare our search over! Which might not have been a bad thing since streets were so narrow and windy, I was afraid we wouldn’t actually be able to physically make it out of town.
We did make it out though, and down to Prescott. It’s better than Sedona, for sure, but still not where we want to live. Great hiking around this town as well; we enjoyed a six mile jaunt around the Granite Dells on Saturday. It ended up being more bouldering than hiking, so both of our legs were tired and I opted to nap in the hammock. Perfect!
For our last night in Prescott, we cooked those farmstand fresh chiles on the fire and grilled off bratwurst. For me, it was a nod to the Cubbies since brats are excellent ballpark food, in my estimation. With the Cubs-Dodgers series starting tonight, it’s the one time I have regretted taking the TVs out of the Minnie.
Today, we are going to the Grand Canyon, South Rim. We were not sure whether or not we would get there because of how busy it is and the fact that they require reservations for the campground through November and we hate having to worry about reservations. But on Thursday night, we checked availability and the weather, and surprisingly we were able to get the last site big enough for the Minnie. Its’ our first reservation of the trip. We’ll let you know how it goes—we are excited to see this wonder!
