Thursday morning started off a little rough. I dropped an entire cup of scalding hot water for tea on my arm in the hotel room while everyone was eating breakfast. So painful. We treated and wrapped it as best we could for the day because we did not want to miss our zipline opportunity.
We went ziplining at Predator Zip Lines which is attached to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park in Camp Verde, Arizona. We did 5 zips over the exotic animals - like lions, wolves, antelope, zebras, rhinos and giraffes. And the bear enclosure, although they were still tucked up in their dens hibernating. The mountains in the background is Humphrey's Peak just north of Flagstaff. We weren't allowed to take our cameras with us because of zipping over the animals - but they had a photographer follow us from the ground on a few zips and get some good pictures.
From there we continued on south east a bit to a nearby Indian reservation and the first of our historical stops for the day - Montezuma Castle which is now a national monument. The native peoples built this spectacular multi story apartment complex basically into the cliffside.
From there we drove north back through Camp Verde up to Cottonwood where we stopped for a labyrinth walk, a Starbucks run and to photograph some cool murals.
Then it was north to Clarkdale and the second of our historical stops - the National Monument Tuzigoot. This is the remnants of a giant native pueblo style community. Nearby are the remains of the mine also from the white settlers.
Then we added a third historical stop that had not been on our itinerary originally, but was suggested by some friends on our vacation posts - Jerome, Arizona. This town is supposed to be haunted! We parked and spent a lot of time walking around and checking out the cool stores (a whole store dedicated to kaleidoscopes!) and also a swanky hotel that is almost a 100 years old and used to be a hospital.
We left and drove back to Sedona for one last dinner and we picked the Hideaway House as much for the food as for the view. We ate on their back porch overlooking the canyon from the previous day's hike and got to watch the sunset one last time.
