Roam to Jerome…

Another weekend on the road… what to do… what to do?

Well, this looks pretty good: I’ve seen the road to Jerome mentioned many times in the forums. Since I showed up at the rental place with no reservation my bike choices were limited… a huge FJR1300… or a SV650 for half the daily rate of the FJR? As much as I was hoping to avoid the SV and get a VFR or V-Strom instead… I can’t argue with half-price. It’s decided!

The road through to Jerome was amazing: dozens of corners… many 180 switchbacks signed at 15-20MPH (but with all the guardrails… few places to pull over and take pictures 🙁 ):

There were lots of other bikes on the road! And downtown Jerome was crawling with them!

Here’s a pic from a rest area: you can barely see the road crawling along the left hillside (you can just make out a couple of tiny cars to the right of the blue sign):

I came in on top of the town.. Jerome is built into the side of a hill.. so you have to wind down the streets to get out the lower end to the highway: here’s a pseudo-panoramic view looking down:

And finally a view from the bottom of the town looking back up, and a pic of some of the old rail carts and electrics motors from long ago when mining was the booming industry:

After Jerome I looped North through Sedona, and stopped at a bridge just outside town. There were tons of cars there and lots of tourists so it was a good time to stop and stretch my legs and see what all the fuss was about:

There was a great view of the valley and river under the bridge… you could follow a trail down the hill to the river below… there was lots of people playing in the water (second pic)…

…here’s a closer view of all the people splashing around in the sun:

My last stop before heading home (2 hour drive straight South down I17 to Phoenix) was the Oak Creek Canyon lookout point:

Here’s an Easter Egg photo for my mom: the lookout had lots of tables set up with people selling crafts: this is where I bought her Mothers Day gift… since she rarely uses the Internet I should be safe posting the photo now before I mail the presents back to her 🙂

Another long day… about 300 miles in total… time for some sleep…