Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

What a difference a day makes. It was in the mid-60's yesterday; and today it snowed - off-and-on all day. And tonight it's freezing.

Yesterday I did about 10 miles of hiking on various trails. Took a ton of red rock pics...but I won't bore you with any more until I can more thoroughly photoshop them. My dogs are yapping. My hands are still swollen and blistered from golf; and now my feet are in the same condition. Gotta toughen up!

But today was a horse of a different color. I drove up to Jerome, Arizona - about 30 miles southwest of here. Sedona is about 4500 feet in elevation and Jerome about 5300 feet. It was snowing like hell by the time I got to Jerome. Visibility about 1/4 mile. I didn't really know where I was going; so almost pulled-off the highway at one point to wait for the snow to subside.

The trip was well worth it however. Jerome was a big mining town up until the 1950's, became a ghost town, and has now been reclaimed by a bunch of entrepreneurial minded old hippie types. Although from what I can tell a lot of the old hippies have become fairly gentrified.

All the major structures date from the 1890's through about 1920. In the snow, it actually reminded me a lot of Juneau - it's built on a steep hillside with winding streets. And while many of the establishments have been renovated and are on the National Historic Register; it's more to a standard of Juneau 30 years ago than to Juneau's current St. Thomas/Cruise Ship look. In other words, Jerome retains a certain degree of seediness that I always find appealing. It's definitely a work in progress.

I was wearing my deck shoes which are shit in the snow so immediately legged-it into a restaurant for shelter and coffee. I think the place was called the Red Rooster. I got there just as the breakfast crowd was in full-swing so sat at the bar and ordered breakfast. I had an absolutely fabulous crepe Lorraine - a crepe topped with scrambled eggs, spinach, bacon, tomatoes, and Guyerre.

The clientele was a mixed bag. Tourist types like me, some respectable looking locals, and a couple of young musicians who I expect work one of the local gin-joints and had clearly pulled an all nighter. The young gals behind the counter were delightful. I found the ambience quite charming and the whole town appealing.

I poked my head into a fair number of galleries. A mixed bag. A lot of predictable stuff - think of typical Alaska gallery prints where coyotes are substituted for bears and red rocks for glaciers; but also a fair amount of whimsy. If I owned a house; I might even have bought something.

I imagine that Jerome's charm in my mind is partly by way of contrast with the main gallery district in downtown Sedona which is all in red-stucco modern structures, incredibly crowded, and impersonal. Sedona has a bunch of quirky folks wandering around - psychics, new age types, and the like; but my tastes run to the more traditional eccentrics of which I suspect Jerome has more than its fair share.

Bottom line: Another great day.

Tomorrow I'm off to Phoenix and will overnight at an airport hotel. I've got a Tuesday morning flight to Seattle and will immediately drive to Portland. Looking forward to seeing the gals and all my other Portland buddies.

More later...

Buenos noches.