Cherry, Arizona


I have family up in the high desert of Arizona. They are a quirky bunch who have settled into a cute little nest in a town called Cherry, Arizona. This was a mining town long ago. Nowadays, it's a dirt path off the highway that no one knows about, don't know the town, don't know it exists. That's the way they like it there. The people who live there are everything from crusty old desert dudes to survivalist-types to retiring families and folks who just simply want to get away from it all. I did a little short clip of the trip to Cherry and the cemetery there. It's an adorable little one with a lot of graves for pets and some older ones from back when the town was an active mining place and some graves simply named "baby" for folks whose newborns didn't make it. I thought you'd enjoy a new cemetery to look at and some extremely dry Arizona countryside...

Comments

  1. It was freaking hot, kind of humid, barely any clouds. Dust kicked up as I walked to the cemetery from the family "compound" and there were cattle that broke down their fence and were eyeing me suspiciously. It smelled of hot creosote--a desert bush that when moisture rises lets out its oily medicinal smell, kind of like lavendar and evergreen, sort of soapy smelling. When it rains here, the wet creosote smell is amazingly pungent and awesome. There's an old firehouse beside the cemetery with an ancient truck (hope they never need it for a fire). I got some shots of some cool stuff that I'm uploading and will do another post about it. I can ride an ATV up to the mine area on the mountain and there's an ancient old miner's shack with these really old canned foods and stuff still in it. Creepy as all heck! There's also another house that was abandoned and stocked with stuff for the millenium and the rats took it over when they fled. Lots of weird stories up there and potential horror short stories for my future writing...

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  2. It's almost like a lost world. It looks beautiful, but I am sure it doesn't feel beautiful. Wondering what these people do about food.
    Mary

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  3. Mary, they're probably 15-20 miles from a good town with a CostCo and all... They just have a turn off on the freeway that is unmarked, dirt road, winds into the boulders and no one knows what's back there. It's like a little haven. It has a creek and pine trees and is very charming. Most folks, like my family, stockpile stuff in freezers and grow some herbs and veggies and have orchards and help each other a lot, like plowing the snow in the winter and hauling the trash. They have privacy, but when one needs something, the others jump in. I don't think I could take it for long myself. I'm too outgoing and personable and need a change of pace, but I could take a month of writing some horror up there and listening to the weird birds and the coyotes...

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  4. would have be packin' in that area, if only to keep coyotes/pumas at bay

    but yeah, damn fine place to write all kindsa tales :)

    creosote is a toxic wood preservative up here...

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  5. Nice drive and cemetery and I didn't even break a sweat...thanks for the trip.

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  6. LW;
    Yeah, when I first moved here and it rained, I thought the smell was nasty. It was very pungent and medicinal but over the years, you become a desert rat in certain ways. When there's enough humidity for monsoon, two things happen; locusts scream and creosote sets off its scent in the air. The sound and the smell both turn me on now. I have a policy that first monsoon of the season, I dance naked in the rain. It's exciting after a haboob (dust storm) when the rains finally come and clean everything off...

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  7. Julie;
    I'm going to drag you up there some day to document all the graves for the cemetery association. It's a super fun drive--just past Sunset Point. I'll be doing another post soon with photos of the cool stuff there.

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  8. I will have my camera ready for that trip (in the winter right?)

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  9. Wow, that cemetery looks nothing like the ones around here! I'm not used to seeing the desert I guess, with all the dry ground. Everything is green grass and very manicured here. It was interesting to see a different part of the country.

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  10. Cindi;
    Yeah, that's a quaint tiny one. We have the ones where they water and grow grass, but the majority are poor dry dirt. I will never be buried here. The thought of being left in the desert makes me shudder.

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  11. i've never seen a cemetery like that either. looks like a movie set...but that's what makes it unique. i love to visit there.

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  12. Were those "Baby" grave markers made of wood? I went to a cemetery here a while back and saw a wood cross as a grave marker. It surprised me as this cemetery is not a very old one and all the other graves around it are pretty modern. Added to that, the few older graves are in a completely different section of the cemetery and there's only about five of those or so, so what's up with the wood one being there? I'll probably never know.

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  13. Let's not forget creosote as the black, oily coating on the inside of your chimney :P

    I love a tiny cemetery. Thanks for the clip.

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  14. Sandra;
    We have a lot of quaint ones in the west and some that are totally makeshift. There's actually a whole section of this cemetery for household pets...

    Grim;
    In the west, you find a lot of wooden markers and I don't get it--they don't last long, but I know during the pan epidemic of 1918, they had a whole lot of wooden crosses erected for the nameless foreign workers who worked on the farms. It's startling sometimes to go into a cemetery and just see row after row after row of them. In the rural areas, people made their own and they're usually concrete or wood. We may be a state for 100 years in a couple of years, but we still are rather "old west" in some aspects. There are nice city cemeteries, but the desert patches of cemeteries are still outnumbering them.

    Pangs;
    Glad you enjoyed the little jaunt. Next weekend I do a ghost hunt downtown with a huge slew of experiments I will be talking about this week and I will do some filming including some ridiculously fun filming and a bunch more of the "fact or faked" tank top shots with a very buxom friend... You might particularly enjoy those every Friday when I review "Fact or Faked."

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  15. that cemetery is so cool! i LOVE it! that would definitely be MY place to hide out (also, only for a month!) to write a book! and, BTW, i liked the music!

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  16. Libby;
    It's very nice and there is actually a house butted up against--right up against it literally. I wonder what it's like in that home? I'd love to ask. That song--my #1 cruising in a car song.

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  17. My mom grew up in Cherry. We have went to visit but her old house has a giant fence around it and we aren't sure who lives there now to ask if we could see the place. My grandpa is buried in the cemetery. He has an old Wagon wheel by his grave- its pretty cool :) I can't wait to go back this summer! Maybe one time we will get lucky and the people who live in her old house will be there!

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  18. I think I know why the markers are wood. When my grandfather was buried there in 1937 my father paid for a "metal marker". When we visited in 1948 there was no marker. Realizing that wars come along with metal drives to support the war effort, when my father died we were sure to use a stone marker.


    amnacarol

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  19. You are right Cherry is a best kept secret in Arizona and we would like it kept that way. The Cherry welcome sign is No Trespassing. A Cherry resident.

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  20. Just visited Cherry today. Spent time in the cemetery and took photos. Met the nice lady who runs the B and B. Took our RZR from 260 up the "back way." A fun drive with beautiful surroundings. While there isn't much to do there it is a very nice place to visit. I'm sure the residents love how private it is.

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