Cottonwood, AZ (04-16-15)

The town of Cottonwood is about 30 minutes from Sedona, which makes it a great spot to hang out and do some hiking.

After giving ourselves a day or so to recuperate from our 9 mile hike, we took to the trail again, but on a shorter trail.  We hiked about 2 miles into Boynton Canyon Trail, and then decided it was enough, and turned ourselves around to head back out.

Sedona is a very spiritual place and we were serenaded on our hike by someone playing a flute on top of one of the sandstone formations.

Even spiritual places want to stay in the 21st century, which requires cell phone towers.  If you look at this picture for a few seconds, you will be able to pick out the tower, but overall, they did a pretty good job of blending it in.

Mike and Julie soon joined us in Cottonwood and after an evening of Margaritas and camaraderie, we hit the trail the next day. 

This time we did a 3.5 mile loop (Bell/Bail/Llama/Little Horse) with a little elevation gain, but not much.

We rewarded ourselves with a night out on the town.  Dinner at the Tavern Grille, followed by drinks and live music at the R.I.O.T. Bar.  The “Blues Cousins”  had a great time listening to Llory McDonald sing some of our favorite songs.

Tuzi-who? and Déjà Vu

Tuzigoot is the site of the ruins of a Sinagua Indian village, which was an active village for several hundred years, reaching it’s peak population in about 1300 AD.  When archeologists began to excavate the ruins in the 1930s, they had no name for the project.  A Tonto Apache working on the dig suggested  “Tu Zighoot”, the Apache name for “crooked water” because of the nearby river.  The name was adopted, but was spelled incorrectly and mispronounced, resulting in“Tuzigoot”, which has absolutely no meaning at all.

The village consisted of many attached rooms, each of which housed one family.  The rooms were built with stone and mud walls with a combination of wood timbers, reeds and clay for the ceiling.  Instead of doors, the rooms were entered by climbing ladders and coming in through the roof.
   There are many of these villages in the Verde Valley, all of which were built on top of hills, presumably so that the surrounding flat land that was suitable for farming would not be wasted.
The history of this place is so ancient that archeologists and scientists can only guess at why the population left this area in the 1400s.  There is no current Sinagua population left, so their story did not survive the years.


Jerome



   From Tuzigoot we could see the town of Jerome in the distance and since it was early enough in the day we decided to wander over there.  As we drove up the winding hill towards the town, I realized that we had been here before, although neither of us remembered that we had.  I think we were here in 2002 when we took the kids on a trip to Arizona.



Paul and the Ranger looking down Little Daisy, a 1900 ft deep mine shaft.

 Jerome is an old mining town, still surrounded by mountainous piles of tailings, the byproduct of ore mining.  This is a well known “ghost town” that has a larger population now (600) thanks to tourism.  Paul and I wandered the town, poking our heads into many of the small stores, and ate lunch at restaurant in a building that was built in 1898 and still has the original bar stools.
The town we’re staying in is Cottonwood, about 15 miles or so from Sedona, which is one of the places we’ll be exploring in the next few days.  We knew the weather would be coolish here and we were right.  It's downright chilly and the weather forecast isn't looking any better.  The high on Tuesday is supposed to be in the 30s.