Early in the morning we left our campsite and began our trek towards Jerome. Jerome was a copper mining town until 1953 when it became a ghost town. Hippies moved in and revitialized the town into an artist colony. The Jerome Historical Society began buying old properties and renovating them, giving visitors a feel for what the town had looked like in its heyday in the late 19th and beginning 20th century. The mine museum helped us get a deeper understanding of the history of the mining and day-to-day lives of its inhibitants, including the seedier parts.

We saw many nice shops and restaurants and had lunch at the Hilltop Deli where we sat on their dog friendly patio.

Our next stop was the Tuzigoot National Monument. This is the remains of a Sinagua village built on a hilltop. Villages such as this one were populated for hundreds of years and were abandoned in the late 1300s.

Sedona is a very busy and popular tourist destination, located in an absolutely stunning landscape. Our first stop was at a “visitor information center” where we were offered a $360 2-night RV camping and Jeep rental package for a mere $20. What was the catch you ask? This visitor information center was run by a timeshare company and wanted us to sit in on a 90 minute “no high pressure sales talk”. We politely declined, at which point the salesman’s demeanour changed dramatically, and slightly put off, visited an offical Arizona visitor center where we had the pleasure of getting a lot of information from a great agent.

Our next task was to find a home for the night and we found a great spot at the Cave Springs Campgound. Secure in the knowledge we had a place to stay, we drove back to Sedona to try and catch some sunset pictures. The clouds were not terribly cooperative. A bit disappointed we scouted out some potential locations for tomorrow morning but found many of them to be inaccessible with our van or overrun with people.

Tired and hungry we stopped for a BBQ dinner and then headed back to our campsite.