Our niece Stacey came up to visit us yesterday (Sunday). We had lunch in Old Town Cottonwood at the Tavern then went to Dead Horse Ranch State Park for a nice leisurely stroll and chat.

Looking closely at the picture above we can see the old copper mining town (and now tourist destination) of Jerome high on the hillside.

Somehow, we failed to take a picture with Stacey in it so that will have to wait until we visit her home in Tempe sometime in the next few weeks. But we did get a picture of a blue heron that kept following us around.

After strolling around Dead Horse for a while we returned to the RV park and hiked up on the Sinagua ruin above our trailer. Beautiful day and not too hot.

Our negative opinion about our RV park has mellowed somewhat and we would now replace the park simply into the quirky category. This developed because last Friday the scary people with four dogs in the old wreck of an RV next to us packed up and left (after apparently being here for months). Today some very nice people from Alberta in a mega motorhome pulled in and will be here for about a week. Our neighborhood just took a big step up. Plus, right now our wifi is working well.

We are going to go exploring to areas we haven't been to before over the next few days, and this morning we booked first-class tickets on the Verde Canyon Railroad (check out their web site at http://verdecanyonrr.com/). It seems unbelievable but the train sells out everyday. We have not taken the train before because it takes all afternoon and we haven't wanted to leave Abby alone for that long. But we made an appointment for doggy-day-care at the Canine Country Club just up the street along with a grooming. We dropped by the place a few days ago and it is very nice. This will only be the second time in her 10-year life that she has been professionally groomed.

So maybe we will have some interesting photos and observations later this week - or maybe not.