Seattle to New Mexico (and on to Texas): April 8-10

Bear with me on the 'installments' of this trip; I'm updating it in between online courses...

So like I said before, we were really glad to get into Dead Horse Ranch State Park (http://azstateparks.com/Parks/DEHO/) since there were so few sites left - what a terrific park this is. I highly recommend it for anyone needing a 'central' location to tour Phoenix, Sedona and the beautiful Verde Valley. Cottonwood is a great town too - more traffic & actually larger than we thought it would be but just a nice town in a beautiful setting. Cottonwood is located in the Verde Valley about 30 or so miles south of Sedona. The Dead Horse Ranch State Park is located on 423 acres just outside of town along the Verde River and as its name implies, it used to be a ranch. One story goes that the ranch was named by the children of the owners - they were looking for a ranch and had toured several, when the family got together to discuss which one to buy the children all said "the one with the dead horse". Thus the name, or so the story goes.

Despite the name, this is a beautiful park with an extensive trail system that links to the Verde Valley Greenway. There are over 150 developed campsites, most of which have water & electric hookups. Cost is $19 for water/electric, $12 I think for just tent sites and there are several bathhouses with free showers. The campsites, while not 'private' due to the sparse vegetation are well spaced apart and other than Quail Loop, you don't feel crowded at all. This is a GREAT park for dogs as there are numerous trails to hike along and other than one mishap with an antbed & a nearby cactus, we had no issues at all with prickly, stickly things that can get in a pup's foot. From some of the trails you can see nearby Tuziqoot National Monument (more on that in another post) and the surrounding mountains.

Our Campsite #55

View of the larger camp loop at DHRSP

Hannah & Maggie on the trail

Hannah HATES her harness and must stop
every few feet to itch - makes for slow hikes.

Hannah eating ants. Maggie loved them too and got
stung for her efforts a couple of times.

View of the Verde Valley

Tuzigoot Ruins rom the trail

Tuzigoot ruins and marsh from the trail

At night, the historic mining town of Jerome seems to just float above the valley floor, its lights shimmering in the distance.

Jerome, AZ from the trail

Bryan really thought the afternoon sunlight on the foothills looked like the hills in Tuscany, Italy. It was a beautiful site and so very peaceful. The park also boasts of 3 lagoons that are stocked for fishermen. Nice paved trails circumvent these lagoons and allow for puppies to get their feet wet - away from the fishermen of course. Unfortunately, we never made it down to the river, we just never had time but if we will certainly use that park again as there are lots of things to explore in the area; we just didn't have time to see it all.

One of the lagoons at Dead Horse Ranch