Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, AZ

10/17/09

We arrived at Wal-mart in Cottonwood at 3pm. The temperature was 82 degrees. We set up and went into Wal-Mart for our groceries. The temperatures continued to climb to 87 degrees. Not good when you can not turn the air on or even a fan on. The temperature out in the sun was 112 degrees. We were so glad when the sun finally went behind Wal-Mart, so we were finally in the shade. Even with the sun down it took a long time for the Nest to cool down to be comfortable. Our stay at Wal-mart in Loveland CO. was the only other stay that was worse with temperatures in the 90's. By 11:00 PM we finally got down to 77 degrees. The night was very quiet except for someone who was talking on his cell phone around 4AM outside of our Nest according to Joe. I vaguely remember it. As soon as we got up and ready to go, we headed to the Dead Horse State Park Campground, which was 3 miles away. We would have gone directly from Flagstaff to this campground, but when Joe called to make a reservation, they told him they did not take reservations and it was on a first come first serve basis. They also told him the campground was full on weekends unless you showed up early on Friday. We were coming in on Saturday, so we didn't even try. We just went to Wal-Mart.

Lot 103 at Dead Horse State Park Campground, Cottonwood, AZ. In the evening, we sat out and enjoyed the great breeze we had. All day it was very hot, low 90's, so we stayed inside and enjoyed our electric connection to air conditioning.
Joe said, " I guess we are not going to have a good sunset tonight. The sun is already down below the mountains."
As we enjoyed the breeze I said, " I see a little pink, maybe it will get better."
Oh look the sky is lighting up and getting prettier. Do you see the face in the clouds?
Oh how pretty pretty pink the sky is.
The sky starts to get darker again. The face has a pig nose.
Look Joe, and you said we were not going to have a pretty sunset.
Keeps getting better.
Picture in the opposite direction of the sunset. (west) The clouds are pink here too.
The sky is on fire!
Arizona has amazing sunsets.
Can you see the rays from the sun?
This is the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen!
Looks like the sun is rising.
Not to shabby for a not too good sunset.
I hope you enjoyed the sunset as much as I did.
The moral to the story is: sometimes things do look as good as they are going to be.
View out our window on the coach.
Do you see the cluster of light near the top of the mountain?

Here is a better picture of the cluster of lights. That is the town of Jerome. We have not been there yet.
Same picture out our window on the coach except in daylight.
A close up of previous picture. Do you see the town of Jerome?