Yesterday, we must have earned some sort of National Parks Medal. We visited 3 National Parks/Monuments in the SAME DAY! We spent a few nights in the Verde Valley of Arizona – between Phoenix and Flagstaff on I-17. We made it to Montezuma Castle, Montezuma Well, and Tuzigoot National Monuments.
Montezuma Castle is basically an apartment building carved into the side of a mountain. It was amazing to see. It didn’t seem like just some sort of cliff dwelling because of the size and fact that it had 20 rooms and a few different levels. Until 1951, visitors could actually go inside, but viewing from the ground was pretty cool.
Montezuma well is cool too. Between a few nondescript ridges is a large body of water. It’s fed by 1.6 million gallons of spring water from below. It’s the only place in the world where a specific variety of shrimp lives. The water has 80 times more carbon dioxide than a standard lake, which means fish can’t survive there. Leeches are the top of the food chain! Ewww!
Between all of the National Monuments, we had the best Mexican meal of our lives at Adriana’s Mexican Food in Historic Cottonwood, AZ. Every aspect of the meal; service, chips & salsa, meal; was perfection. Seriously, go there if you’re nearby.
Tuzigoot is another ruin, but this time on the top of a mountain. At its peak, it housed 250 people in 40+ rooms. It was pretty awesome to see too, with 4-5 different levels and great vistas.
After Tuzigoot, we noticed that Jerome was just 4 miles away. We’d heard that Jerome was a ghost town (after being a booming copper town) that had been saved by artists. Plus, it was up high in the mountains. So we drove up the winding road to see an amazing little town perched perilously in the mountain. There were a lot of cool little shops and restaurants with bed & breakfasts and wonderful views. We had sleeping kids in the car so didn’t stop, but made note of the place and hope to stay at a B&B someday.
