Our destination was Verde Valley at the Thousand Trails Park. Since we are up in the mountains, we expected the temperature to be quite pleasant. Think again! It was 103 and still rising. As we checked in at the ranger station, we were told that there are only 17 sites with 50 amp power and that they were first come first served. The ranger didn't believe there were any available, but someone might be leaving tomorrow and we could move quickly to claim the site, then let them know at the station. There is a $3.00 charge for the 50 amp sites.
We drove down into the park in the valley where we unhooked the car so we could drive through the 3 sections and find a perfect spot. Lo and behold! The first 50 amp site we saw was empty. Doug quickly brought the coach and backed into it while I called the ranger station to verify the spot was available. Yea!!!! It was. By now, we were both melting from the heat so Doug plugged in the power cord and turned on the air conditioning. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh..........
It's a nice park with lots of trees and grass. Just too bad about the power situation. Doug sprayed for bugs and we finished setting everything in place while the coach cooled down.
After a few minutes to relax, we decided to take a ride into Cottonwood which is only 5 miles away. It's a decent size town with everything we might need for the next couple weeks. Then we continued exploring and followed the signs to Jerome.
Jerome is a historic copper mining town that is sometimes called "America's most vertical city". At one time, it was the 4th largest city in the Arizona Territory and now is a thriving tourist community. Most of the homes and business are perched on the 30 degree incline of the mountain and gravity has already claimed some.
We continued to follow the road and signs up the mountain to the Gold King Mine & Ghost Town. It was getting late in the day and a thunder and lightning storm that had just rolled in kept us from touring the ghost town. It looked interesting, but Doug wanted to get us off the mountain before the storm got crazy.
The storm and 10 drops of rain cooled the air down to the low 90's. It was quite comfortable by the time we arrived back at the coach.
No comments:
Post a Comment