100 Years of Ghosts

Jerome with Red Rocked Sedona in the background

About 50 miles south, and 3000 feet down the plateau from Flagstaff there is a town carved into the Mingus Mountain of Arizona called Jerome.  It’s a ghost town left behind from a copper rush.  

Population during the rush:  15,000

Today’s population:  353

We were told it was an artist colony with a no rules, free living vibe.  Our first impression was that it was trying too hard to be a ghost town, Sedona-healing-vortex spin off. There are some galleries there, but mostly filled with southwest stuff – you know painted cow skulls and copper crosses.  There are some paintings too, but the subjects are mostly “out there” topics of tarot cards, UFOs and mystic wolves. 

One of the terraced streets of Jerome

The surprise was that there are almost as many wineries as there are galleries.  Sadly the wine is not so good, and when we looked at the bottle of one, the wine room attendant helpfully told us that the label was from a local tattoo artist and if we wanted he could ring him up and book us an appointment. No thank you, we were actually wondering what the grape was.  Silly us.

We wandered, up and up and up this little town mostly in awe of the views – 25 miles from the red rocks of Sedona, 50 miles from the snowy peak of Mt Humphrey, this place has a perfect scenic perch to gaze out at the geologic wonders of northern Arizona.  Sadly the town hasn’t taken advantage of their views.  Buildings are ratty and dark.  A few of the original buildings are still in tact – turned into hotels and museums which specialize in celebrating their paranormal activity. 

The House of Joy (Apparently)

At the top of the hill a long line was gathered outside a smoky hamburger joint.  Clearly this was the place to eat, but standing in line for a hamburger didn’t make sense to us so we walked back down and down and down the hill to a Mexican place we had seen earlier – Quince – Spanish for 15.  Their menu looked interesting – not just the standard burrito and enchilada buffet.  Wow was it awesome.  I asked for the house margarita and got a blood orange sour, not sweet, thirst quencher.  We asked for chips and salsa and got three amazingly fresh house specialties. We were told we couldn’t buy some to take home because the shelf life was only 3 hours – they just keep making it fresh all day.  I ordered the fish tacos which were beer battered fish covered in a mango, cilantro, chilli, pomegranate salsa.  So fresh and bright.  It’s worth the trip to Jerome to visit this place alone.

Quince Restaurant in Jerome

Fish Tacos

After lunch we decided to continue up Mingus Mountain towards Prescott to see the scenic route 89a in more of its mountain pass splendor.  It didn’t disappoint and before long we were back up above 7000 feet elevation.  A little curiousity expedition led us on a slippery narrow dirt road with switchbacks and drop offs to oblivion.  2 miles up the road we passed a sign saying “no shooting from this point” – we hadn’t been aware that shooting had been allowed up to that point.  Yikes.

A spectacularly scenic drive along route 89A - By the way, londoners, this is what they call a 'cloudy' day here.

We headed back down Mingus and into another little old town, Cottonwood.  We lucked out.  Main street was closed to traffic for a festival celebrating Arizona’s centennial.  My god, has Arizona only been a state for 100 years?  1912 apparently.  The street festival was small, but had a line of old cars to gaze at, a wine tasting area and a public Zumba class which went on for as long as we were there.  Back at our Virgin Active gym in London we always saw these funny women in Zumba wearing belly chains for extra glitz as hips sway and pulse to the music.  Zumba in downtown Cottonwood was a little different – cowgirl style.  It was fantastic to watch.  I think the ghosts would be very happy to take part indeed. 

Public Zumba - note the tie-dye and belt buckles!