I booked a tiny cottage up the hill from Main Street in Jerome because I wanted a weekend that felt contained. I'd been

through town once years earlier on a drive between Prescott and Cottonwood, and the way the houses

clung to the hillside stayed with me. Porches stacked over porches, switchback stitched into the slope,

galleries that looked like they could slide if you breathed on them. The listing

showed a little place with a narrow deck and a view straight across the Verde Valley. The owner

messaged me a door code and a note about parking. Pull in nose first, leave room for the neighbor,

don't block the old stone steps that run behind the cottage.

Historic access, she called them. Miners used to cut across there, locals still do.

I didn't think much of it at the time. The photos showed carved steps, notched into rock

and patched with concrete, then a faint path climbing towards scrub and broken tailings. It read as a

shortcut to a view. We rolled in late morning on a Friday, and did the usual small-town loop.

Park, walk main, split a sandwich from the corner place. Look in windows we couldn't afford to buy

from, wander through a tiny museum with a few rusted

tools under glass. By mid-afternoon we were sitting on the deck with two cold drinks,

trying to name the plants on the slope behind us. I knew Creeasote from visits down near the desert

floor, but up here the brush was a mix. Stiff manzanita with red bark, some juniper, low oak that snagged your pants if you got too close.

Bunch grass tufts that looked dead until wind moved through them.

The air had that dusty sweetness you get where rock bakes all day,

and every so often a motorcycle wound the switchbacks, and the sound bounced around the

canyon like it was testing the walls. The cottage had a guest binder with the usual tips,

quiet hours, a reminder to keep the deck gate latched because of javelinas, a map of how to walk

to coffee without walking on the highway. There was a one-page flyer from

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