Camp Verde, Cottonwood & Jerome, AZ

Sunday, April 19, 2015

The pictures below are of beautiful flowers and a hummingbird nest we saw our last day at Camp Verde.

Can you see the hummingbird in her nest?  Tic got an amazing picture. Some other campers told us she just built this nest 2 days ago.

Monday, April 20, 2015
Below is the check in at Dead Horse Ranch State Park.

We moved a whole 15 miles up the road. 

We have a great site...nice and wide and shade in the afternoons.

This is another view of our site at the state park.  We arrived and were set up by noon.  After lunch we decided to go exploring.

We did not have to go far.  Tuzigoot National Monument was only 4 miles up the road.  Tuzigoot is a 2- to 3-story pueblo ruin on the summit of a limestone and sandstone ridge just east of Clarkdale, with a nearby visitor center featuring artifacts of the Sinaguan Indians.

 

This is where we got to go inside the ruin.  It was cool inside and about 85 degrees outside.

There were about 5 or 6 grinding stones from the Indians around.  This is just one of them.

This little cactus had the prettiest hot pink flowers.

From the top of the Tuzigoot ruins we could see Jerome.  This picture of Jerome with the J was taken from Tuzigoot.

This picture of Jerome is taken on the way up to Jerome.  The large structure in the middle of the picture looked interesting to us.  I will tell you more later.

We first headed to Jerome State Historic Park featuring the Douglas Mansion, built in 1916 by a family of influential mining entrepreneurs in Jerome.  The picture above is the Douglas Mansion.

There were beautiful rose bushes just outside the entrance.  In case you haven't noticed, I love flowers so I frequently have pictures of flowers.  This orange rose was just gorgeous!

The yellow roses were beautiful also!

Of course, there were red roses too.

This is one of the larger displays of azurite and malachite.  Jerome was a large mining town and mined all kinds of minerals along with copper, zinc, silver and gold.

We are now going to tour the inside of the Douglas Mansion.  James S. Douglas built the Mansion on the hill just above his Little Daisy Mine in 1916. Douglas designed the house as a hotel for mining officials and investors as well as for his own family. It featured a wine cellar, billiard room, marble shower, steam heat, and, much ahead of its time, a central vacuum system. Douglas was most proud of the fact that the house was constructed of adobe bricks that were made on the site.

 

Look at this soda carbonator.  This was used in one of the hotels in town in the 1920's.

This is the central vacuum system pump used in the mansion.  Its original location was in the basement.

This was the main bathroom with marble shower.  Doesn't look too different from a current retro bathroom.  This room was a large room probably 10' by 12'.  

This machine was used to test the air brakes on the mining trains.  At the peak of production, we were told that the mines were producing approximately $1 million per month in ores.  That is a lot even today.  Imagine how much that was in 1916.

This is some of the train cars used in the mines.

This large machine was used to pulvarize the rocks as they came out of the mines.  Look at its size!

This talks about a little locomotive used in the mines.  

This is the little locomotive.  Can you tell how small it actually is?

Here is a little history on the main production of the mines.  There was also a room full of mineral and semiprecious stones on display.  This post is so long already that I left those pictures out.

This was an interesting building, not functional, just up the road from the Douglas Mansion.  If I remember correctly it was once a hotel there in town.

It turns out this is the Jerome Grand Hotel still operating today.  There was a narrow, in places one lane, road leading up to the hotel.

We decided it was time to head home.  As we got back to the state park we decided to drive around and see what all was in the park.

This is a panoramic of one of the 3 lagoons in the park.  There were several people fishing.

We were told to look up into a dead tree just outside the walkway around the lagoon.  To our surprise was......

this bald eagle.  He looked small to us, so based on what we learned at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, WI, we are guessing he is about 4 years old.  They do not get their white head until then.

Here is an even closer look.  Tic is fantastic at taking great pictures!  We think getting to see an eagle in the wild was our highlight of the day.

We are truly blessed and thank God for allowing us to enjoy so many of his glorious creations.
God willing we plan to see many more.