The Gold King Mine and Ghost Town of Jerome

Tucked away in the black hills of Yavapai County and overlooking the Verde Valley is the old copper mining town of Jerome. Built in the late 19th century, the town once boasted that every other building was a brothel.

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The Gold King Mine and Ghost Town is kept standing by the eccentric Don Robertson who maintains a
sprawling collection of ramshackle buildings, rusted machinery and an old mine shaft.

At first glance, this appears to be an appropriate setting for the Zombie Apocolypse.

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At second glance, this appears to be an appropriate setting for the Zombie Apocolypse.

Kate surveys one of the many old vehicles on the property.

This is Don, the eccentric caretaker of these parts and probably the creepiest guy I've ever met.

It would be a week or two before I stopped imagining Don Robertson
chasing me around his property with one of these rusty old chainsaws.

I didn't go in.

Tuzigoot National Monument

Tuzigoot preserves a 2 to 3 story pueblo ruin on the summit of a limestone and sandstone ridge.

The site is an elongated complex of stone masonry rooms that
were built along the spine of a natural outcrop in the Verde Valley.

The central rooms stand higher than the others and served public functions.

The pueblo was built by the Sinagua people between 1125 and 1400 CE and has 110 rooms.

Here is Kate in 2009. How time flies.

Tuzigoot is the largest and best-preserved of the many Sinagua pueblo ruins in the Verde Valley.

The ruins at Tuzigoot incorporate very few doors. Instead they use
trapdoor type openings in the roofs, and use ladders to enter each room.