Cottonwood ... It Was A Cotton And Wood Day ....

This isn't Cottonwood, but it IS Jerome, sitting up on the hill ABOVE Cottonwood.  I love this old mining town ... ghost town ... now the center of artistic creations!!  More about that tomorrow!!

This is downtown Old Cottonwood, which I should have showed you yesterday.  There's not a lot of traffic, but it's early ... just wait an hour or so.  It's a great place to visit, with many interesting stores and characters to talk to.  Check out the Cat's Meow Antique Store.

This is where I purchased the placemats ... Silver Sun West.  It's a great store, full of things you will want to buy ... but buyer beware ... most, if not all, of these items aren't from the "Old West".  All the baskets are made in Thailand and the placemats in India.  The Talavera does come from Mexico, but it's pretty pricey compared to Tubac.  

Here's Pawz on Main, the cutest pet store ever,  If you look close behind the dog in front, you will see a picture of Denise and her beloved Bovi ... a bobcat she raised his entire life.  Unfortunately, Bovi passed away recently, as all our best friends eventually do and he is missed terribly!!

On down the street is the Old Cottonwood Jail.   This was where all the bad guys were held after it was built in 1929.  Bootlegger King Joe Hall met Al Capone here, who was hiding out after the St. Valentine's Day massacre.    Al supposedly came to find illicit rum runners to carry booze from Arizona to California and Mexico.  Who better than the King of Bootleggers!  Al Capone's name was found carved outside the jail cell after a visit with Joe, which you can see if you ask the nice ladies behind the tea counter.  Not JUST a tea house now ... THIS is where you can get the cupcakes!!!  I guarantee you will LOVE them, so stop in and say hello!!

For those Old Hippies among us, the Hippie Emporium is still open and going strong.  You can tell by the funny smell when you walk in the door.  They've got great clothes here however, at good prices!!

In the afternoon, I took a walk down by the Verde River.  There's lots of wood here for sure ... you have to scramble over it to get to the river's edge.  This section is rather shallow, allowing for the growth of cattails.  The Verde River (Green River) isn't exactly green.  In fact, due to the recent rains, it is distinctly brown, but made for some nice cattail reflections!!

Further on down the river, you can see where the high water mark was ... all of the grass on the bank has been pulled one direction from the rushing water.  I wouldn't be standing here unless there were blue skies!!

After scrambling over the cottonwood trees, once I stood still at the river's edge, the ducks would start quacking and continue their afternoon swim.  

There's even a waterfall ... not really, because the water only drops about 12 inches, but it did make a nice waterfall sound!!

More wood ... coming back from Cottonwood this morning, I stopped at Home Depot and had a 2 x 12 cut up for leveling blocks.  I'm not sure where these will live, but I can't keep borrowing everyone else's blocks.  It's good to have wood of your own!!

Then it became cotton time ... not from the cottonwood trees, thank goodness ... but from all that cutting I did the other day which required sewing, so I got out my trusty Janome sewing machine from Valdez Alaska and went to town!!  I should have paid a little more attention, since all of those red and white triangles are stitched together the wrong way.  RATS!!  Now I have to make another trip to the quilt store for a seam ripper!!

If I can get this blog to load, I will be heading out to my favorite Jerome this morning for some shopping and picture-taking.  I keep hearing my named being called from that direction, so I'm sure there's something there I can't live without!!!