Desert Trip – Day 2

Today I’m continuing to share about our Desert trip. If you missed my previous posts about this trip, you can go here>>> Day 0   Day 1 So on Tuesday, we got up, packed, and had breakfast at the hotel. We headed to north towards the Grand Canyon. We stopped at Black Canyon Visitor center, which was a great idea. The retired couple that works there were full of great advice. We also got some maps.

The views on the way…

Not sure if other people do this, but when we’re in a beautiful spot we’ll sometimes pull over (in a safe spot) and take in the landscape. This is actually at a pull off area with parking spots in Prescott Valley. We usually don’t take selfies, but decided to this day. I’ll have to say my hair in this non-humid environment was so awesome!!

Our next stop was Jerome.

We were happy to see a public restroom right when you enter the town of Jerome.

Jerome is a town in the Black Hill of Yuvapai County, Arizona with a population of 416 people according to the 2020 Census. It’s located 5,000 feet above sea level; 100 miles north of Phoenix between Prescott and Sedona. I describe it as a city built into a mountain. It’s actually on Cleopatra Hill that over looks Verde Valley. It once was a thriving town of 10,000 people back in the 1920’s most of which worked in the copper mines.

We really enjoyed walking down Main Street. There are some really cute, unique shops all located in old historic buildings. There a numerous historical plaques talking about some of the buildings, some of which are literally just shells left empty.

The views from Jerome are pretty awesome. I believe this is San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, AZ.

After that we continued to towards Sedona. First order of business there was finding lunch! So many choices. All of which seemed pretty pricey. We ended up at Cafe Jose. This ended up being like a diner. Food and service was fine. I had the Sedona burger with sweet potato fries

Rob had the Sante Fe Ribeye with onions and peppers and Cojita cheese

After lunch we went to the visitor center where they gave us several options for things to go see and stop at.

We heeded their advice to go the airport view point and do the little hike. It’s $3 to park, but well worth it. Plenty of parking. Nice half mile hike to gain some pretty nice views.

I had flip flops on so we didn’t do the entire .6 one way.

From there our next stop is a must see while in Sedona; the Chapel of the Holy Cross.

Nice views before you enter the chapel. This mammoth house has some epic views.

You can get the view of the front on your drive away from the chapel so be ready.

What I love about Sedona is that as you get close you start seeing the amazing red rock creations. You don’t have to go to a certain area to experience the beauty. You’re surrounded by it. We really want to go back there, because we didn’t get to see all the formations as we were a bit crunched for time.

We took the scenic route near Flagstaff on our way to the Grand Canyon.

We were starting to realize we could probably make it there for sunset, but we would be cutting it really close. We basically drove straight to Yavapi Point and got there just in time!

The golden hues bouncing off the landscape were incredible!

Once the sun was down, we checked in to our room for the night at Yavapi Lodge and ate dinner in the Dining Hall there. We were surprised to see how nice the lodge rooms were and even had TV.

See more pics >>>> Day 2 Pics