Still Chased by Snow in Arizona

When last you heard about us, Russ and I were having past life regression sessions in Prescott. That done, we left Prescott a day early under the impending threat of ten inches of snow. We drove across the mountains to the funky mining town of Jerome. Russ had not been there before and we were so close, it seemed a must-see.

Like on my previous trip, we ate lunch at Bobby D’s BBQ. This time, it was Russ’s turn to sit in the “haunted booth” where a former restaurant owner died. Despite this unappetizing tale, we heartily enjoyed our lunch of BBQ chicken, ribs, onion rings, and zucchini fries. They make the BBQ sauce on-site. Our favorite of the four was the jalapeno, molasses and brown sugar one. Zippy but not too spicy, even for us Minnesotans.

Sated, we searched for Nellie Bly’s kaleidoscope shop, which I’d visited last time. Then, I did not purchase any of these tubular wonders. Now, I had some relatives’ birthdays as an excuse. I even bought a small polished wooden one for us. Sometimes, you just need to look at the world in multiple triangles.

A kaleidoscope image I took with my phone camera, looking through the scope when back at home.

After some more browsing, we decided it was best to hightail it to lower elevations before the snowstorm came. We drove to Phoenix where we stayed overnight. The next day we visited the Heard Museum, which specializes in Native American art. From the sculptures outdoors to the paintings indoors, it was all marvelous. But my favorite exhibit was “Stories Outside the Lines: American Indian Ledger Art.” Hidden in several upper floor hallways, the drawings show events and past achievements that Native artists recorded in ledger books.

According to the museum, this art form began in the late 19^th century when several Great Plains tribes were relocated to reservations by the U.S. Government. Many of their cultures had traditions of recording events on animal hides using natural pigments. Faced with imprisonment for practicing their cultural traditions, the Natives turned to the materials they had at hand, which were ledger books and colored pencils, provided by traders and government agents.

What struck me was their two-dimensionality. They looked like something a school child would draw except for the subtle sophistication of the topics they depict.

Russ and I are both big “Outlander” book and TV series fans, so our next stop was in the suburb of Phoenix at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore. The bookstore is near Outlander author Diana Gabaldon’s home and she sometimes does events there. We found that we missed Diana by a mere day – she was going to be speaking the next evening. Although tempted to stay, we had relatives waiting for us in Tucson, so we had to content ourselves with buying a few books instead. (After I got home, I discovered that one was autographed by Diana!)

An example of ledger art, courtesy of the Heard Museum.

Later, we drove south to Tucson and stayed at a relative’s home. We awoke the next morning to, you guessed it, a few inches of snow. It was the first snow the city had experienced in several decades. It seems we just could not escape it. However, the white stuff quickly melted.

A blooming cactus at the Sonoran Desert Museum

Bighorn sheep, Sonoran Desert Museum

We saw my son in Tucson and toured the Sonoran Desert Museum. Both Russ and I had been there before, but my son hadn’t. It had been years since we’d been there – the exhibits seemed more numerous and larger than I recall, but I suppose some had been added since the 1980s!

Our trip capped off with a hike in Madera Canyon, which to me seemed more like a valley than a canyon in the national forest nearby. The area is known for its birds, so we made sure to take in the bird-feeding station at the Santa Rita Lodge after our hike. We saw a lot of turkeys and Mexican jays.

Thus, ended our trip to Arizona to escape the snow. We failed in that regard, but the experience was successful in so many other ways.

A stream in Madera Canyon

Jerome – A Counterculture and Bohemian Mecca: Adventures in Northern Arizona, Part 2

Jerome, Arizona.

While I was standing in line to rent a car at the Phoenix Airport, the man in front of me asked where my friend and I were staying. He was from Philadelphia and vacationed in Arizona frequently. When I told him Sedona, he said that we had to go visit the nearby town of Jerome. “It’s an old mining town with shops run by a bunch of hippies,” he said.

That’s all it took to convince me that we needed to go there. I’ve found that some pre-planning is fine for vacations, but that the best advice often comes from people you meet along the way. This trip was no exception.

The day we journeyed to Jerome dawned bright and mild, like so many other mornings during our Arizona stay. Linda and I hopped in our rented Nissan Versa, which dutifully took us up and down the northern Arizona mountains (even though the rental agency clerk tried to talk us into getting a larger car to handle the elevation changes).

A large “J” on a mountaintop was the first thing we noticed about Jerome. Then came the hairpin turns as we wound our way up to the town, which is situated precariously on the mountainside that used to yield its copper to miners. We parked in an area close to stores and hopped out to explore.

We purchased some goodies from the Connor Hotel gift shop, marveled at a poster that proclaimed the existence of a Jerome Ukulele Orchestra, and partook of a wine tasting at the Dragoon Mountain/Cellar 433 Winery outlet, which is simply called “Winery” on the outside. We had also visited their tasting room in Sedona, and were interested to see what different varieties of Arizona wine they offered here.

We sampled a flight of whites served by Barry, who wore a bandanna around his head and whose ears sported many heavy earrings. Our favorite was called “Sun.” Like the name implies, it was honey-colored with the warm flavor of roasted nuts. Hints of honeydew melon, white peaches and ginger topped it off. Unlike the Sedona winery, no guitarist serenaded our tasting. But like the Sedona winery, the view was fantastic, plus local artwork graced the walls.

The view from the winery. The impressive building on the left used to be a hotel, but is now a private home.

Lest we walk around the perilous Jerome pathways in a stupor, we decided to cross the street to the English Kitchen Restaurant to eat lunch to cut the alcohol. That turned out to be an excellent and otherworldly choice.

We sat in an inviting booth and learned about the history of the place from the back of the menu while the smell of hickory barbecue drifted in from the restaurant’s smoker out back. The English Ktichen, also known as Bobby D’s BBQ is the oldest restaurant in northern Arizona. It was built in 1899 by Charley Hong after his original restaurant in the Connor Hotel (where we had just been buying gifts) burned down when the hotel burned. Oh, and by the way, there used to be an opium den in the basement of the English Kitchen.

The counter in the English Kitchen/Bobby D’s BBQ.

Charley died in booth #3 of the restaurant, where he frequently slept. Apparently, he is still hanging around, his presence manifested by flying salt shakers and misplaced items. The restaurant turned into the BBQ joint it is today in 2011.

When our waitress came to take our order, I asked her where booth #3 was. She pointed to the booth where we sat. “Do you want to know what side he died on?” she said, with the ghost of a smile. I could guess, but asked anyway. She pointed to the side where I sat.

Ewwwww!

But that did not make me lose my appetite. I ordered the BBQ bacon cheeseburger with fries. Oh man, oh man, oh man. That was good! It came with four different barbecue sauce choices. My tastebuds grew up in Minnesota, so that means I chose the non-spicy sweet one. Sorry, I can’t recall the name, but the sauce complemented the meat perfectly.

After lunch, we waddled around town for another hour or so. We found a shop that specialized in kaleidoscopes. Don’t see that every day.

We could have easily spent several days looking through all the shops, but the Sedona hiking trails were calling us, and we had to answer. And besides, we needed to walk off all the barbecue.