Everything is better with friends, including Jerome.

I had a plan two weeks ago to take a trip Jerome, by myself, to photograph the beauty that the old city holds. I enjoy spending time by myself, going on solo adventures, but I was a little nervous about driving all by myself.
Then I invited a friend. And another friend. And another friend. Then they invited friends. Before long, there were two cars filled with four people apiece caravaning up to Jerome, and I was the leader.
We left slightly after noon on Sunday, once Raquel had finished singing at church, and after everyone was able to convene at my house. All eight of us raided the refrigerator for yogurt and granola (a staple in my house) and decided to mix up who was in which car.

Connor, Liz, Brenna and Me

My car was stuffed with me, my babyhood friend Brenna, and two people I barely knew--Liz and Connor. Ben's car seated Ben, Andie, Raquel and Jon--four people I knew rather well.

We set off with two full tanks of gas and mouths filled with vegetables (we all like healthy food, and brought a ton with us).
We took the back roads on the way up, curving through Prescott Valley up the back side of Jerome, on the 89A.
At one point, everyone in my car needed to use the restroom. We were turning off the 89A onto a road that lead to Mingus Lake, and I didn't notice a the restroom, so I just drove all the way to the lake. A beautiful, bumpy detour. It felt good to turn down a random dirt road and drive until I felt like stopping.
We got out to stretch our legs, make noise, and use the newly cleaned restroom at Mingus Lake.
After everyone used the restroom and we tired of the lake (Mingus Lake is more of a large mud puddle, anyway) we continued on to Jerome.
We passed a few awesome abandoned mining buildings on the way up, down, and around the hills, but didn't take the time to stop and check them out. It was already 3:30 by the time we arrived in Jerome, and we knew most of the shops would close at 5 or 6.
Our two cars got separated once we hit the city--I parked up near the Holy Cross Church, in a secret lot near some apartment buildings. We all met up at the church and explored it for a little while. The interior is very beautiful, as was the semi-blocked off back patio. What can I say. A few gates won't deter a bunch of outdoorsy, adventurous college students.
Eventually we made our way down the hill and into the shopping area, where we visited a Native American pottery shop, a vintage shop, a kaleidoscope shop (I'm still amazed that people are willing to spend upwards of $2,000 on a kaleidoscope) and a large amount of vacant buildings.

Somewhere around there, our group of eight split up again, between the hungry people (who went and bought fudge) and the not-so-hungry people, who found an old film projector.
You can learn a lot about someone by watching what they do when they find an old piece of machinery. I learned that Ben, Liz and Andie are very curious people, who like to take things apart. Before long, we had the entire machine dissected and open, blowing out cob-webs and smiling at people who walked by. It was a pretty simple machine, after we got it figured out. Our big unanswered question still is, "Does it work?"
Eventually, we got hungry and went out to find the other hungry people. Liz and I bonded over being upset that Flatiron Coffee was closed for the day (The only place in Arizona I've found that brews Intelligentsia coffee. Liz loves coffee, too.) and everyone was a little disappointed that the pizza place we wanted to go to was closed, and the Mexican place we also considered had a very rude host.

After poking around a few more abandoned buildings and overgrown grassy lots, we wandered back to the side of Jerome we started at, and sat down at GRAPES, a wine bar/new-Italian restaurant. The eight of us filled two booths, which were promptly figured to be the loud booth and the quiet booth. I was in the quiet booth, along with Brenna and Ben (they're siblings, if I haven't already mentioned that) and Jon. We sat. We chatted quietly. We yawned. Ben and I drank coffee (we had to get back to Phoenix somehow). We split a delicious brownie covered in ice cream and some sort of fudgy-cheese cake chocolate goodness. It was a good dinner to end a great day.
When we wandered back to our cars, we decided to head back to Phoenix through Cottonwood. It was dark and enough people got carsick on the way up that we figured going back down the way we came was a bad idea.

When we stopped and got gas, Ben and Andie each bought a corncob pipe, and some loose leaf tobacco. We stopped at sunset point and sat taking in the stars, wind, thunder and lightning and TUNEYARDS.
We passed around the corncob pipe, recounted the day, and thanked God for each other. Just as it began to rain, we ran back to the cars, got in, and headed back to my house with Iron & Wine/Calexico playing in the background.