September 17, 2012
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Road Trip, AZ
Dad and I had a really nice drive to Jerome, AZ on the day I spent there before heading to California. Him and my Mom had been there before and thought I'd be interested in seeing it and the views along the way. Of course they were right.
The roadside attractions...rocks.
Layers and layers of different types. Quite fascinating, really.
Other roadside attractions included cactus. I had Dad pull over so I could pluck (no mean feat) a few spikes to take home to the kids.
I really loved the views. Would have preferred blue skies to the familiar clouds, but visiting during the monsoon season does that to the skies. Still, breathtakingly beautiful!
The red rock, the green vegetation and peeks of blue sky with white clouds made me and my camera happy.
I loved these V-views.
When we got to Jerome, we stopped at a copper shop. This shop had pretty much every type and style and shape of copper. And a few other things as well. I liked this unicorn "shield", but not the price tag so it remains in the shop along with everything else that caught my eye.
These are splats of copper that were really cool.
Some of them were huge, others small. 
All were expensive.
Out the back door, on a little balcony, we saw the town of Jerome laid out on the side of the hill.
Jerome is built with rough roads. 
I just had to stop and get a picture of the "Rough Road" sign. As if you haven't figured it out by the time you got close enough to read it, you should be warned. Who knows, maybe it got even worse further up, but that's hard to imagine. Jerome is quaint and steep, with narrow (rough) roads and tourist shops lined along each switchback.
After we'd toured the town (which included driving down it and back up) we headed back to Prescott Valley. Along the way we saw a rainstorm.
Complete with thunder! 
We did a little caching, just so I could get AZ on my map of states cached in, swam in their pool again, and had a big turkey dinner. Then I "shopped" in their pantry and loaded my new car with stuff to take home, stuff to eat along the way and made sure I had everything I needed for the next leg of my road trip.
Then, to bed. I wanted an early start in the morning.
