Cottonwood Arizona

Monday morning after coffee and breakfast we drove south to Cottonwood. In Flagstaff we filled up with diesel (ouch), then took I-17.

We're at Dead Horse Ranch state park, large sites and very quiet. The only problem, like many other places, are campfires. I like campfires but when the weather is as pleasant as it has been on most of this trip we like to keep the windows open and enjoy the fresh dry air. But when your

neighbor upwind of you decides to light a fire, well the wind inevitably blows the smoke in our windows. Yep, start closing the windows.

We're about 3500 ft. elevation so the weather is a little warmer. Still need the heaters at night, and a light jacket early and late. Oh yesterday we had rain. About 5 drops! Still no mosquitoes.

Yesterday we drove to Sedona, a beautiful town. But not my kind of place, too commercial and crowded. We drove up 89A along the creek to the viewpoint then drove back. The drive was very pretty but a lot of traffic. One of the rangers we talked to said on the weekends if you want to park

anywhere along the drive you need to be there before 9am. We drove up Schnebly road, a 4x4 trail. At least what Sedona calls a 4x4 trail, very different than Moab. We saw over 20 tour jeeps along the 7 mile drive. Also saw an old VW beetle bug! The guy said he's been driving all over the

country in it.

After that we drove out to see some ruins. Palatki was nice, talked to a volunteer there and we might want to volunteer there in the future. We couldn't approach the cliff dwellings but they looked to be in good condition, some petroglyphs there also.

Honanki was a little larger with more cliff dwellings near a creek running along the canyon.

Then we drove back to Cottonwood to see Tuzigoot. These ruins were built on a hill overlooking the valley where they planted fields. A large complex with over 200 residents. Of course most of these ruins were abandoned long ago for some unknown reasons.

Today we might walk around old-town Cottonwood then drive out to Jerome.

The first day we had no internet at the campground, then found an open signal and were able to connect. But when we got back yesterday afternoon that signal was gone. Probably a camper that left yesterday. Oh well, there is internet in town so we'll check email later today and I'll post this blog. Hopefully someone will come in with an open signal.

We went into Old Cottonwood late this afternoon and did a cheese tasting. Very good cheeses, bought a wedge of Tet De Moines from Switzerland and Vacche Rosse Parmigiana Reggiano from Italy.