Camp Verde AZ

Camp Verde is about 95 miles north of Phoenix, on I-17. I had to take a day trip on Saturday for work. To my delight, I received a warm welcome by seeing that they named a street after me! Right next to the turn onto Lacey Lane was a rather rickety looking pedestrian suspension bridge.

I heeded the Keep Off, Private Property sign. I'm not sure if the water it spanned was part of the Verde River or if it was over Beaver Creek. I think this was still Beaver Creek. There were a couple similar bridges as you drove closer into town.

These are pictures of Beaver Creek.

Since I had an hour to kill during lunch, I drove the 3 miles to Montezuma Castle National Monument for a quick visit.
From a distance, it just looks like a dent or cave in the side of the cliff.

As you get closer, you can see the castle.

It's amazing that the Sinagua culture could build something like this into a cliff over 1,000 years ago.

Ruins of another neighboring castle.

On the other side of I-17 just outside of Camp Verde is the Out of Africa Wildlife Park. I didn't visit there during this trip, but did stop by about 3 years ago - right after they moved from the east Phoenix area to Camp Verde.

When I visted, they only had the Serengeti Safari open. You climbed into a cage on top of a Hummer and drove through the big fenced area that had zebras, gnus, ostriches, giraffes, and other African animals (not the big cats). I think they have now changed from Hummers to other types of vehicles.

Below are a few pictures that I took of the animals.

They provided you with giraffe food, so the giraffes would come up and stick their head in the people cage and take food from you. It was pretty fun. You can see more pictures here.