Camping and Wine Tasting in the Verde Valley - Part 3

What about Part 2?  You should read that first.

Thankfully, the noisy bird that woke us up on Saturday left us alone on Sunday morning, so we slept in a bit more - until 7am or so (layabouts, that's us).

Taken from the Jerome State Historical Park -

that's the old smelter in the background

We eventually dragged ourselves out of bed, made coffee and chai, and started the shower cycle.  After getting ourselves dressed and hopping in the truck, it was time to make a pilgrimage up the hill to Jerome.  Jerome is a really neat place - it was founded as a copper mining camp back in the 1870s, and although the mines went bust about 50 years ago, it's now populated by artists and other cool folks, and there's all sorts of neat galleries and restaurants and whatnot to visit.  As I mentioned in the last blog, Jerome is perched on the side of Cleopatra Hill, and it really shouldn't be there at all - no history of Jerome is complete without stories of buildings just giving up the good fight and sliding down the hill, including the jail, which was occupied at the time.

Within the last year, a new hotel/bar/restaurant, the Clinkscale, opened in a historic building dating from the late 1880s, and it was our Sunday morning breakfast destination.  We made it there around 9am or so, and we got a seat right away.  I had the eggs benedict while Chris had a French omelet (just Hollandaise everywhere), and we enjoyed our food while watching the tourists wander up and down the street in front of our window.

Hiking up the staircase from where we parked to breakfast.

The streets in Jerome are super steep,

so lots of these types of stairways exist here.

My hot date!

In all of the times we've been to Jerome (four to five or so), we'd never made it to the Jerome State Historical Park, and we figured now was a good time to remedy that.  Since it's a state park, the fee for admission is $7 (per person this time), and the museum is both within and on the grounds of the former Douglas Mansion (one of the Douglas family owned the Little Daisy Mine, which allowed him to make a killing and afford the house).  The museum has tons of cool exhibits, including on the history of Jerome itself, on the mines in the area (and mining in general), and whatnot.  It also has a great outdoor section, with old mining equipment, classic carriages, and a great, shaded picnic area.  It's well worth the $7, that's for sure!

The historical park is perched on another hill in Jerome,

so you can look back and see the town proper.

A view of the museum from town.

It's about 8000 square feet,

so it's not small.

The Little Daisy Hotel.

The Douglas family originally built this for mine workers,

and it was recently sold as a single family home.

From the museum parking lot

There were several cool reliefs in the museum,

including this one, which showed both Jerome

and the mining claims underneath it.

Some piece of mining equipment - 

the mansion is on the right,

and the carriage house starts on the left.

A few shots from the picnic area

After touring the mansion and grounds, it was time to hop back in the truck and start the trip down the hill toward Clarkdale, where we had a noon appointment for a bit more wine tasting.  Normally, on a trip of this length, this is where we start to burn out on drinking wine (yes, it is possible), but we're so glad we kept this appointment.  Specifically, this tasting was at the Southwest Wine Center, which is run by Yavapai College and the students/staff of their viticulture and enology programs.  The Center has several plots of land around the area, and students grow, harvest, blend, and bottle wine from the grapes they grow.  It's a really neat place, and Yavapai College is one of only a handful of institutions that offer programs like this.  Although we were a bit leery of "student made wine" at first, our tasting quickly showed us the quality work the program is doing and the amazing wine it's producing.  It's also pretty darn lovely there:

We added a few more bottles to our growing collection and decided we'd had enough.  It was back to the camper for us, to sit around and chill for the rest of the day (Chateau Tumbleweed and Smelter Town Brewing, we'll see you next time!).  

Better check in with the alpacas:

Everything seems status quo around here!

Once back in our comfy clothes, Chris read for a bit while I napped, and then I joined him for snacks and books on the lanai (the concrete slab where our chairs were parked).

Enjoying our anti-gravity chairs.

Around 5:30, it was time to start making dinner - steak and potatoes on the grill, along with a bagged salad.

Starting the potatoes on the grill box...

...and moving them to the campfire,

once the steaks took over the grill.

Dinner turned out great (we must have been too busy eating it, as I have zero pictures from this point on), and we spent the rest of our final evening making S'mores and singing along to (very quiet) music from my "Travel - Chill" playlist.  We slept well again, and were up and moving around by 7am on Monday morning.  Again, we did the coffee/chai thing, but this time, we made breakfast at the camper, yogurt/granola/blueberry parfaits.  Showers were had, the camper was packed up, and we were back on the road headed home around 9:30am.  We made it home around 11:30, unpacked, started laundry, and picked up the girls, happy for the entire pack to be together once again.

Our trip to the Verde Valley was an awesome one, and we'll absolutely be back to visit Lo Lo Mai Springs again - we just need to make some more room in the wine fridge!

Later!

Amy