Monday, June 23, 2014

Once I returned from my trip back east, I left again on a family summer trip to Northern Arizona.  Steve, Shawna and I packed up my new van with fans and suitcases and 4 grand-kids and headed west and north on I-17.  Our first stop was the old mining town of Jerome, Az.  Much like Bisbee, Jerome is built on the side of a mountain with the mine at the bottom and panoramic views facing east.  We walked through the quaint old town, bought the kids ice cream and then toured the mansion of the owner of the Daisy Mine.  It was an 8,700 square foot house built in the early 1900s.  All the materials for the mansion were native to Arizona and the owner only spent $150,000 to build it.  Of course, that was a lot of money in those days!  But a house that size would cost millions these days.

Our second stop was our motel in Camp Verde, AZ.  We had dinner at a local barbeque place.  The food and company were excellent.  We were glad we passed up Denny's and Burger King that night.  We passed the "Out of Africa Wildlife Park"  on the way to the motel.  It was our destination for the following day.  So we knew just where to go the next morning.  The motel had complimentary breakfast which included omelets with cheese, yogurt, toast and donuts, and cereals. We let the kids chow down, slathered them with sunscreen and headed for the park.  It is a privately owned wildlife park.  Some of the animals, especially some of the tigers, were rescues.  I was a little apprehensive in the beginning, sometimes places like this can be a little disappointing to say the least.  However, this park was terrific!  There was a bus ride through parts of the park where animals roamed relatively free.  The kids were all given a piece of celery to feed only the giraffe or the camel.  The bus was high and had open sides so it was easy for the animals to reach in and the kids to move around and reach out.  Everyone had a chance to feed and touch the giraffe.  I heard someone comment that this experience alone was worth the cost of admission.  Besides the giraffe, we saw zebra, different kids of antelopes, including one endangered species, huge African cattle, an ostrich, a camel and mountain goats.  All of the animals were closer to us than in any regular zoo we have been to, only the sides of the bus separated us.

After the bus ride, we walked the rest of the park to see lions and tigers and bears! OH MY! LOL!  We also saw timber wolves, baby tigers, one white which was my favorite, and a rhino, a real one, not the political variety.  The kids also got to touch a huge lizard, a boa constrictor and a young cavie, a giant rodent.  We had lunch right next to one of the tiger cages and then we went to the tiger splash arena.  Three trainers got into this arena with a pool and proceeded to play, yes, play, with a huge Bengal tiger.  The tiger was not trained to do tricks or anything like that.  He was only raised and accustomed to the three people with him, two men and one woman.  They took turns dragging big plastic pool toys for the tiger to chase and attack.  They got him to leap into the pool a couple of times and to leap high up the side of the arena to grab the toy.  They would give him treats of raw chicken and beef to reward him and so he would allow them to retrieve the toy from them.  At one point the tiger decided he wanted to check out the young women who was narrating the show for us.  She got very still and very quiet as we watched the tiger approach her.  The young men called out to the tiger and swung one of those big pool toys in the air.  The tiger decided he wanted to play some more and the woman resumed her narrative.  Just a little drama there!  Amazing!

I must not forget the finally at the park.  They had a huge zipline setup.  You could spend two hours riding from one zipline tower to the next over the whole park and flying over all the animals.  Steve, Shawna, Jake and Dan decided they wanted to try it.  They only wanted to do a part of it, the final quarter mile from the center of the park to the entrance.  It cost $25 a piece.  Steve paid and they all climbed the impossibly high tower and put on a bunch of gear including helmets.  Logan and Eden and I walked down the hill to where they would end up so we could watch them arrive.  The wind was blowing all day.  It was about 3 in the afternoon now, when the wind is at its worst in Arizona.  I would say it was blowing about 50 mph at this point.  The ziplines were moving back and forth.  Several people came down the line and then I heard over one of the attendants' walkie-talkies, "Sending Shawna and Jake down now."  We could hear a whirring sound as they slid down the lines.  Then they were swing above us and then, thump, thump, they landed on the platform above us.  Steve and Dan did not come.  We saw them returning in one of the zipline buses.  Shawna and Jake walked down the steps to our level and then we all walked down the rest of the steps to meet Steve and Dan and see what happened.  Steve said Dan's knees were shaking so badly that he almost could not stand up, his face turned pale and he said, "I'm not doing it!"  Steve could not leave him to return in the bus with the attendants when he was so scared so he stayed with him and they rode back together.  Yeah right!  We know they both chickened out!  But you didn't see me up there!  Ha!  I can't imagine!  Shawna said her knees were still shaking so bad even after she came down that she could hardly walk.  Steve says, "Next year!"

We returned to our motel to swim and recover from our exciting day.  The next morning we headed north again.  Our first stop, not too far from Camp Verde was Montezuma's Castle.  Montezuma did not really have anything to do with it but the name stuck anyway.  It was another fascinating historical site.  No one really knows what happened to the people who built the castle.  After that we continued north a little further to Sunset Crater Volcanic National Monument.  The wind was blowing again.  We stopped to walk along one of the park hiking trails.  The wind whipped up particles of volcanic ash that stung our legs and pushed us along the path.  We could see right across the road, the highest peak in Arizona, Humphrey's Peak at 12633 feet in elevation.  Awesome!

Next stop was the Meteor Crater along I-40 East toward Holbrook.  We were shocked at the development and the cost to get in to see the crater.  Wow!  $18 per adult and $9 each for the kids! Steve really wanted to see it though so we paid and took the elevator 3 stories up to the edge of the crater.  It is where part of the movie "Star Man" was filmed.  Maybe part of "Thor" too but I'm not sure about that.  The wind was terrible once again.  We walked across a little bridge and I could feel my feet being lifted.  Steve grabbed both little kids and held on to them.  Eden was screaming that she was being blown away! The railing did not seem adequate to keep the two little ones from going over the edge.  Eden and I stayed at the top and returned to the inside of the building.  Steve and brave little Logan, Shawna and the older boys walked down a level to a platform that hung out over the crater.  Later when we were paying for post cards at the gift shop, the proprietor said the wind speed was up to 78 mph!  Incredible!  

On the road again, the plan was to spend two nights in Holbrook.  We had a room at the Days Inn with a pool.  We were looking forward to cooling off and getting out of the wind.  The pool was indoors, hallelujah, and close to our rooms.  We had Mexican food for dinner across the street.  Next morning we were off to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest.  We stopped and hiked around at Rainbow Forest entrance, got some more post cards and whatever else the kids could finagle out of us, then we drove into the park.  The views of the desert are spectacular.  We also had a large crow seem to follow us from vista to vista.  We stopped for a picnic lunch and gave the crow a few gold fish crackers.  That's a big NO NO.  Taking any rocks or souvenirs from the park was also strictly prohibited.  They had signs posted with a $350 fine attached to taking anything or even walking off the established trails. We made sure the kids behaved by promising no more post cards!  

Back in Holbrook, we took Steve and the kids to the motel so they could swim.  Shawna and I decided to go check out the local shops.  I got a Navajo Pot and we found a really cool rock shop.  We also found the best Steak House in town.  We decided to take Steve there for his birthday dinner and then take everyone back to the rock shop.  At the rock shop they had about an acre of any kind of rock you could think of plus all kinds of real fossils and petrified wood tables.  The tables were polished wood, of course.  They were absolutely gorgeous and the one I wanted cost, are you ready for this?  $12,000!  And that was a cheap one!  Steve got himself a nice chunk of petrified wood to bring home for our coffee table.  They kids all got a piece of black shiny obsidian or some other rock they liked.  In the morning we started back south toward home through Show Low and Globe and home to Tucson.  It is a good thing we got home on a Thursday afternoon cuz we all needed a long weekend to recover from our exciting adventure.


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