Wednesday, July19

Freaking awesome!!!!

Our ghost town hunting finally paid off! We went to see an old mining town called Jerome. This is the oldest town in Arizona. It also has the oldest English restaurant in Arizona as well. That figures I guess! Anyway, this town was an old copper mining town in the mid 1800s. The town was built on the side of a hill – a very steep hill. Sort of like building a town on the mountain at Hedley! Believe me, the picture does not give you a clue as to how steep it all is. The town has big buildings, winding streets, houses and a whole bunch of stores. These are all above 5000 feet and were built in the 1800s. They have been restored (mostly) and are the home to a lot of art galleries and souvenir stores and restaurants. The town had a population of 15,000 in its heyday. Some of the buildings are built with the front at street level and the back hanging out over a 100-foot drop-off. Understandable when you see that the cliff drops straight down from the side of the road! One of the most spectacular towns I have ever seen.

A short drive out of town is a mine and it’s ghost town! This is the area that the Hispanics lived in.,. The whole area was segregated. Anyway, this place has not been restored or updated, it has just been protected. It appears to be owned by one man (pic at right) and his wife. They are charging people to wander through it and boy, is it worth it. The guy who owns it travels around finding old trucks, like from the first half of the 20^th century. He has literally hundreds of old engines, truck frames, miscellaneous parts, old lawn mowers, antique tools and machines, mining equipment, hoses, fan belts, generators…..the list goes on. He even has a three-cylinder propane powered engine with a 14” bore and 22” stroke! He collects anything old and mechanical.

There are also animals; a couple of goats, a bell-ringing donkey, a bunch of weird looking chickens including one who just wants to be carried around. Kelsey did just that, for about an hour. She wanted to take the critter home with us!

The buildings are just as they were when the mine closed. Really interesting and well preserved. It was just an all-round great ghost town, not all that ghosty, but really old and authentic. I just realized that I was so overawed by all the machinery that I only took a couple of pictures of the town!

The next stop was “Out of Africa Game Farm”. Our timing was really good, we arrived just in time to watch them feed the lions, cougars, two bears, tigers, wolves, and hyenas. Then we jumped on a Unimog (a Mercedes off-road truck) and had a guided tour of the African animals. Lots of the usual critters, but this tour let you get up close, really up close, in fact the kids held carrots in their mouths and one of the giraffes took it from their mouths! It was one of the best tours I have ever been on. Makes the Vancouver Game Farm look pretty bad.

Back to the hotel and kids in pool for another 4 or 5 hours. Water rats.