Wednesday September 20th 2017

Today’s weather was a repeat of the last couple of days. It was a day with full sunshine, breezy and a high temperature around 90 degrees. When I get up in the morning it is cool in the sixties and by the time I go to bed the temperature has returned to a comfortable level. The wind is forecast to pickup tomorrow as a cold front moves through the area.

Somewhere near the top of one of those mountains is Jerome AZ.

I spent the morning reading with the TV on as background noise. I can’t really get into the locally (Arizona) produced morning programs. It seems like all of the major TV channels have a show featuring one to three local personalities talking about local and national feature stories. I can’t get interested in the new chef at the local fine cuisine restaurant pr chiropractic advice for school kids carrying back packs. There are so many of similar programs that I think they’re digging pretty close to the bottom of the barrel for interesting stories.

This afternoon I got around to taking my typical area familiarization drive. I drove through the historic downtown of Cottonwood out to the town of Clarkdale and then up the mountain to Jerome. The entire area owes its existence to the establishment of copper mines in Jerome around 1870. Clarkdale at the base of the mountain was the site of the smelting operation and Cottonwood was established as a non-company town in the early 1900s. The mining operation ended in the early 1950s. Providing cement for the construction of the Glen Canyon dam in the early 1960s followed by tourism has saved the area.

The downtown area of Cottonwood looks like an attempt to maintain a snapshot of what the community looked like in first half of the last century. Shops in buildings constructed in the Spanish influenced style of the southwest line both sides of the street. The seem to contain a mixture of tourist related shops and ordinary shops needed by the citizens of the area. The bypass route contains all of the big box stores and franchise restaurants.

The most interesting town was Jerome. It is near the top of a mountain called Cleopatra Hill. To get there the road makes two or three switchbacks and climbs around 1600 feet from the elevation of Cottonwood and Clarkdale. The roads through town are narrow and pedestrian filled. Tourism is the primary business of the town now. I didn’t stop today, but will probably go back to visit the old mine areas and other attractions.

In the other directions from Cottonwood are Sedona and Camp Verde. I’ll check out those in the days ahead.