We've reached a new crossroads in our family. A crossroads that makes me sad. A crossroads that involves teenagers that would much rather stay home and hang out with friends then go on a weekend trip with the family. I get it, I was a teenager too and would have hands down chosen to spend a day with friends on a lake than visiting old Indian ruins with my parents. But it still makes me sad. While Kylie and Jayden stayed home bonding over ramen noodles (actually, Kylie took Jayden to Cafe Rio and the fact that they hung out together makes it almost worth it), we headed up north. Since Maddox has his 4th grade free National Parks pass we have been trying to take advantage of visiting as many national parks and monuments that we can. Montezuma's Castle has been on my list for a while, but for $20 bucks I wasn't sure it would be worth it. I was right, it wasn't worth $20 but it was worth going for free. Don't get me wrong, it is an incredible ruin. It's fascinating the way they were able to build a home right into the side of a cliff and maintain a prosperous lifestyle. But after walking up and looking at it from the sidewalk, there's not much else to do our see besides a few smaller ruins. So I'm glad we went, but also glad we were able to visit it for free.
After that we headed up to the Jerome ghost town. Another place that has been on my list, but honestly I had low expectations. I was expecting a run down desolate town (hence the title "ghost town"), so I was totally caught off guard when we drove up to a town crawling with tourists. I didn't care for all the tourists, but I quickly saw the draw to this quaint and quirky town. Unlike other ghost towns we have visited that are contrived as an overpriced tourist attraction, this is an actual living town with a mix of historical buildings that have been restored to function as businesses, and a handful of buildings that have been preserved in their state of ruin. There are plaques posted on many buildings telling bits of history and stories that took place in that location. There are rumors of ghost sightings and hauntings, in fact the Jerome Grand Hotel is considered one of the most haunted hotels in America. It used to be the town's hospital where around 9,000 patients had died. I was fine NOT spending the night there, but it was creepy and fun to walk around. We grabbed some home made fudge and ice cream to eat on the stoop while we waited out the rain before strolling the streets. The kids loved the Nelly Bly Kaleidoscope shop. It's one of those places that we would normally steer clear of with kids that tend to touch everything. But the employees here were so cute with the kids and invited them to try all the kaleidescopes. We just avoided the $3,000 kaleidescopes!
This is the sliding jail that slid 200 feet due to a land slip from collapsed mine shafts.
The old Bartlett hotel rooms. The building burned down and this was what remained.
The rain followed us as we drove through beautiful Sedona. I was hoping to stop at a swimming hole, but the rain and gridlock traffic made us turn back. We were gifted with a stunning double rainbow though. And a naked man standing on the balcony of a hotel in town, to which Maddox remarked, "that is whey we don't stay at Best Western." We made our way to Flagstaff where we swam in the hotel pool for approximately 7 minutes and drank hot chocolate with approximately 7 packets of creamer before calling it a night.
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