We left Page, Arizona and made the short drive to Flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff is situated at an altitude of over 7000 feet, so we had very pleasant weather with highs in the 70's and a low of 39 one night. Flagstaff is also located on Route 66 and the city has restored a few of the hotel signs from the hay day of the "Mother Road". The railroad tracks go right through downtown with up to 60 trains a day passing through. With the coming of the railroad they were able to harvest the tall lodge-pole pines that grow in the area. One of those pines was shipped east and used as the ceremonial flag pole celebrating the nations centennial. There in the name Flagstaff was born. One evening we visited the Lowell Observatory on a hill just west of town. We were treated to great looks at a few of the planets and star clusters, that were thousands of light years away. If you are ever in the area we highly recommend visiting the observatory one evening. On Saturday afternoon we attended the OKTO Beer Fest hosted by the Lumberyard Brewery in downtown Flagstaff. All proceeds went to the local animal shelter. We had a great time meeting the locals and sampling beers from 10 Northern Arizona Breweries. I bought Josie a beer snack necklace made of pretzels, Slim Jims and a bag of Cashews. We also had a great brat and homemade chips. It was a lot of fun watching the brat eating contest and the human Foos ball game.
One day we drove the 36 mile loop road through Sunset Crater and Wupatki Pueblo National Monuments. The lava flow from the crater is very impressive. The road then drops in altitude into the Painted Desert where the two major Pueblos of Wupatki are located. The temperature went up over twenty degrees as we descended from the Crater to the desert below.
I drove up into the San Francisco Peaks one morning and did a little birding. Not only did I get some great birds but also was treated to great scenery and vistas. I had seen very few Crossbills in my birding career, so it was unbelievable to see hundreds of them migrating through the area.
We left Flagstaff and spent a week in the Prescott Valley about 80 miles north of Phoenix. One day we drove Scenic Highway 89A over the Mingus Mountains to the old copper mining town of Jerome. In its boom days over 15,000 people lived here. So much copper was mined that they were making a million dollars a month. After the copper ran out in the 1950's the town became a ghost town for many years until a few hearty souls decided to move there and restore many of the original buildings. Today the town has a population of 500 and entertains over 1 million tourists a year. It is a very unique place since it hangs off the side of the mountain looking down into the old copper mining pit. They were having a Volkswagen weekend coming up and we spotted this double-decker bus customized into a VW bus being taken up the mountain. We were going to go on down the mountain to the town of Cottonwood but we saw the sign for the Verde Canyon Railroad in Clarksdale and stopped in to see if they had any seats left for that days train. We snagged the last two seats in first class and sat back and enjoyed the 40 mile round trip journey into the canyon. One of the highlights of the trip was riding through a 600 foot tunnel.
RSS Feed