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First of all, I must apologize for not keeping The Pixel Diaries up to date this past month. We’ve been traveling internationally and have had no connectivity whatsoever. (more on that later) My last post left us in the Sedona, Arizona area, where the bus was parked for about two weeks. When we left Sedona, the plan was to continue following Route 66 as far as we could go before deviating toward Las Vegas. However, we made one stop before that. Jerome, Arizona is one of those artsy little towns full of historic inns, galleries and eclectic restaurants. It’s also one of those places where many of the buildings are said to be haunted. (One of the most popular eateries is called “The Haunted Hamburger.”) Being that we visited about a week before Halloween, the whole place was decked out!

We checked out some of the local galleries and restaurants (HIGHLY recommend the Mexican place called Quince) but the highlight was a place that was just on the outskirts of town. The Gold King Mine is a “turn-of-the-century mining camp” that is home to dozens of old trucks, buildings and a working sawmill, amongst other things. It was an amazing place to photograph and we spent several hours there. Everywhere you turn, there’s  tons of antique items that are just loaded with character. I loved shooting the antique trucks in front of the old buildings that were covered in various tools and automobile parts. The area is also filled with some amazing textures that were super conducive to hdr photography. Don Robertson, the owner and builder, has been operating the site for 30 years and is a character himself.  His intense eyes and long white beard would make him an amazing photo subject (and it seems a lot of other photographers had that idea because there were several awesome portraits of him in the gift shop.)

I actually wish we had more time to spend in Jerome, but we’ll just have to save that for the next time we pass through! More to come…