Chocolate Train!

Verde Valley Railroad

You know those kiosk you usually find in the lobby of hotels that have brochures of local area attractions? They're usually filled with cheesy tourist things such as 'the biggest ball of string in the world' or things to keep children occupied while on vacation. We usually pass these up. Our campground, here in Tempe, had one these kiosk. While checking in we were glancing through the offerings.

We came across the Verde Valley Railroad. Now anyone that knows us, knows that we could end the Bag-It-Tour right now in Sedona, AZ. IF, it was not for the horribly expensive housing and the nonexistent job offerings! There's something about the Red Rock's and the mountain bike riding that just keep drawing us to the area. Well, the Verde River Valley is located between Cottonwood and Sedona, a train tour through the Red Rocks!

After parking and setting up, we went to their website(you can check it out by clicking the title link above). Since this weekend is Valentines weekend, they were having a special 'Chocolate Lovers' train ride. Can't pass that up! We immediately call their number to make a reservation. To our disappointment, sold out! The operator did suggest we call back later to see if they had any cancellations. That was Monday, so we spent the next few days calling to see if we could get in. On Thursday, SCORE, they had 2 cancellations, and we were in!

Saturday morning we made the 2 hour hike from Phoenix up to Cottonwood. This is considered their 'up north' and I think most of Phoenix heads up for the weekend, traffic was terrible.

The train itself is beautifully restored both inside and out, in a Southwest theme of course!

They had these great outdoor observation cars placed between each coach car. It was windy, so it made the 55 degrees feel a lot cooler then that.

Here we are waiting for the 'tour' to start. We knew it would be chilly up here so dressed appropriatly.

Here is the chocolate plate each couple was presented with at the start of the train. This was a four hour tour, so we had plenty of time to pace ourselves. They also stared you out with a glass of champagne. They also had a full bar aboard and a small buffet of fruit, vegatable, dips, wings and egg rolls to snack on.

The tour starts

The even had a caboose, you just don't see those anymore!

Here is the Verde River

They were not kidding when they said to keep your hands inside the cars. Here we pass through a 680' tunnel carved into the rock. The walls came within 4" of the train at some points!

Here we are deep in the valley

OK, I had to borrow this picture from their website. My digital did not have the lens power to capture the nest, which we did see, unoccupied. Nor was I able to capture the 3 eagles we saw in flight over the Verde River. Truly amazing birds, just awesome seeing them in flight!

View such as this went on and on, for the entire 40 miles of the trip!

-Rich-