A few weeks ago, Chuck and I made our annual pilgrimage to Jerome, Arizona.  For those of you that don’t know about Jerome, it is a precious mining town from yesteryear.  Homes are precariously perched on stilts and the whole down has this great eclectic vibe.  This year we stayed at the spooky Ghost City Inn.

Alas, we saw no ghosts.  Which could be considered a good thing or a bad thing depending upon who you are.  Each room has a journal to write about your ghostly experience.  After reading the first few pages, I was a bit spooked and had to sleep with my hands under the covers.  I didn’t want any apparitions touching me.

This was our room — the Verde Room.  Can you see Chucklebutt in the mirror?  It was very cozy!  We got there late on Friday night and on Saturday morning we were greeted with the icing on the cake.

SNOW!!  It made the weekend absolutely perfect.

We had our own private balcony.  You can sorta see the snow in the background.

We were giddy like school kids.  Remember snow days?  Our breakfasts were delicious and the innkeepers very gracious.  While eating, we meet two young women from Brooklyn.  They had flown in to Arizona to escape the snow.  DOH!  I felt badly for them, but was secretly rejoicing on the inside.  😀

It was definitely cold.

Chuck did some evening shots while I hunkered down in the bed and read a really good book.

Creepy local.

I love this shot with the water droplets on the bulbs.

The snow made geocaching a little difficult.  This is Chuck digging around trying to find a microcache.  We had no luck finding it.

We had a delicious lunch at the Mile High Inn.  We’re thinking we may look in to staying there next time.  We like trying new places.

I love this van.  We are a skull kind-of family.

When we go to Jerome, we always bring a new game.  Yikerz is our new favorite.  The object is to be the first to put all your magnets on the game board without attracting any other magnets.  Sounds easy but it is super hard.  We had a ball playing this game.

The other new game we brought was Zombie Dice.  Not nearly as entertaining, but still fun.  Can you say — Urrrrrrgggggggaaaahhhhh?

While Jerome had a nice dusting of snow, I knew that if we headed up the mountain, we would find the mother-load.  So on Sunday we headed up Mingus Mountain in search of some prime sledding.  Before we did that, however, we needed to find some sleds.  Can you believe it, but Walmart doesn’t sell sleds?!  Being the crafty girl that I am, I discovered a pretty good substitute.

Oil pans!  Oh yeah, now we’re cooking!

And what would a Walmart trip be without the gratuitous hammer purchase?  (South Park reference.)

Check out that snow.  The plows were great about keeping the road cleared, but off the road, it was almost up to our knees.  Doesn’t Chucklebutt look good in my hat?  He got lots of compliments from folks.  Notice the C-clamps and rope.  Brilliant idea right?  Sigh.  It didn’t work for poop!  This is how we spent most of our time.

The pans had no structural integrity and we couldn’t steer them.  What a mess!  Still it was fun.

Thank God for a warm car.  We were cold and wet and hungry after our adventure.  We headed back down the mountain to Cottonwood and ate at our favorite restaurant — The Tavern Grill.   Good times!