We checked out Page Springs and Bubbling Ponds.
Page Springs has north and south loops. The north section has a visitor center with restrooms, a larger parking lot, and more presence. The more interesting trails are in the south loop though they connect to the north and you can walk both from there. That’s what we did. The trails follow Oak Creek and lead through woods into meadow areas and around a small pond. Mostly flat; a couple sets of stairs. We didn’t see many birds — it was midday — but saw butterflies and dragonflies.
Bubbling Ponds, a little north of Page Springs, has some larger man made ponds and a 1.8 mile nature trail (which we did) with a .5 mile loop add-on which we didn’t. It included some woods; looked like mesquite? And a large meadow. We saw more birds there, including a — wait for it — stairway to heron. The trails in both areas were pleasant to walk.
We drove up to Jerome when we left there. We stopped at Jerome our first time in Arizona, in conjunction with visiting the Grand Canyon. We don’t remember the details, which is why I take notes now! We do remember there being less to Jerome than there is now.
It’s still a charming former ghost town in the hills. We had Mexican at Vaqueros since it was Cinco de Mayo. A couple volunteered to split their four-top with us and wished us happy Cinco de Mayo. The margaritas were very good (fresh lime juice and Cointreau!) and Steve’s green chile enchiladas were probably better than my red mole enchiladas.
