Jerome is a little city with a big past and tenacious residents. It is built on a steep hillside. Some might call it a mountain. It once was the center of a mining empire. Today it is best known as a ghost town. There are only dozens of people who call it home.

I drive up the hairpin turns and follow the road at the sign for the Jerome historic site. The building is the former mansion of the owners of the mine. Today it operates as part of the Arizona parks system. The road is narrow with steep drop offs. I am almost convinced that I took a wrong turn when we finally reach a parking lot.

The site houses lots of mining equipment and plenty of photos and information about the mines. Unfortunately, you can’t actually tour a mine. But we learn lots of interesting things….Like how houses have regularly slid off the hillside and how fire has ravaged the town on more than one occasion. I enjoy the displays, and feel I know just a little bit more about Jerome.

After the museum, we head out for town. The streets are terraced and one way. It is too steep for anything else. There are signs explaining that oversized vehicles must bypass downtown. A semi is getting ticketed for trying to make it through anyway and causing a traffic meltdown.

Today there are absolutely no parking spaces. Jerome bills itself as a haunted town. It is Halloween weekend, and in Jerome this means festivals and an evening ball. Everyone with a costume or haunted mansion dreams is here. We aren’t sure what our excuse is. We were just in the neighborhood. Despite second guessing our decision to visit, we finally take the last parking space in the last parking lot in town.

For the next two or three hours, I browse shops. We run across a protest on the corner that lets us know the people of Jerome have strong views. We eat a delicious lunch in while sitting in a former bank vault. And we watch people try to throw coins into a toilet bowl sitting in a vacant lot. I am still not sure what that is about.

This is a destination that I truthfully enjoyed. It is not on my “you really have to visit list”. But if you are in central Arizona with time to kill, Jerome is a pleasant diversion. There isn’t much to do except enjoy the scenery, shop, and eat. In fact, you might say Jerome is a tourist trap. I prefer to think in more optimistic ways. It is town that celebrates. It is a town of artists and hangers on. It is a town that reinvents itself in order to survive.