Day 4 of the Southwestern Chronicles: Vegas Baby! (well almost.)

Saturday, Day 4 of the fantabulous Southwestern tour commenced with no plan at all except for driving to Las Vegas, Nevada to check into Mandalay Bay and get registered for the convention. After a continental breakfast it was time to get on the road early. We studied the map and noticed that one of Rand McNally's top scenic drives in America was, in fact, very near to Sedona and on the roundabout way up to I-40 which we needed to hit to get to Las Vegas. We took off west to find the drive.

It is important at this point to note that when looking at a map one does not typically see topography or altitudes, except minimally on selected points like peaks, etc. Sedona is located in the Kaibab National Forest -- of which there are several distinct areas that do not touch one another in the state of Arizona. The drive from Flagstaff down to Sedona is marred with sharp, twisty turns up and down through the mountains. It's beautiful but somewhat hidden on the flatness of a map. The drive west toward Prescott proved to flatten out considerably with the occasional red rock formation popping up randomly. We scanned the open land for any sign of wildlife, again to no avail. We could see mountains in the immediate future and a highway running north along the border. We saw this tiny little town built on the tip top and side of the range. We enjoyed the views and drove through Cottonwood. The road resumed out of town in a northerly direction and as we conversed we lost track of the altitude until the road consisted of hairpin turns and we could look down off the side of the mountain!

We ended up in Jerome, Arizona. For those of you who haven't heard of Jerome, here are a few tidbits about this unique little town. Jerome is "America's Most Vertical City" and the "Largest Ghost Town in America." It is located on top of Cleopatra Hill at an elevation of 5,200 feet. Now - in Oklahoma that is considered a mountain, not a hill and I will therefore call it a mountain. Jerome was a copper mining camp that was officially made a city in 1899. Today 450 people live there and it sits above what was the largest copper mine in Arizona. The houses are perched on the sloping mountainside with "catwalks" from the road to the doors of the houses and businesses. Once on the road in front of the buildings one must look almost straight up to see the next row of buildings on the next street over. As you can imagine, the views are phenominal.

We continued driving and much to our surprise and the "driver of a standard transmission's" chagrin, the road continued toward the sky for quite some time.

We ended up atop Cleopatra Hill (which is a MOUNTAIN people) and had to stop to relax since we had been holding all our pent up carbon dioxide inside our lungs and had been sitting with our necks strained and tense to literally prevent our minds from seeing us sliding down the hill in a stick shift. A short drive up to a mountain lake seemed just the ticket and a state park had just that. The road was a wide gravel and mud twisty thing that led us up and down past a solo ranger's abode to the object of our goal - a tiny little green hole of water that was frozen over in the freezing temperature. Oh well, the mountain air was nice and there were some elk and deer tracks beside the watering hole. We were now late and on top of a mountain.

The rest of the drive was somewhat uneventful until we got to Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam is a story all it's own and will have to be a separate blog post due to it's unexpected occurences.

I highly recommend the trek on highway 89 through scenic Arizona. It is most unexpected and exhilarating! But the moral of this story remains -- if you have to be somewhere don't ever count on the road being straight and narrow. You will be late. I suppose this is an iconic life lesson. Stay tuned for some Hoover Dam!