They arrived late because of traffic tied up south of Phoenix on the I-10 freeway while wreckage from four consecutive accidents was cleared.
But they got there only about 45 minutes late and we had a nice lunch in one of our favorite restaurants.
We reminisced with "the kids" about one of the first times we had visited Jerome, of how I had a photograph of the then 16 year old daughter who became the mother of our lunchtime companion.
It's a classic photograph of her sitting at the bar in the Spirit Room, a pub that's thrived on the same corner in the heart of town for many decades.
It was pretty much a ghost town in those days and we stayed in a hotel room with a broken glass window above the bar on one of our forays.
Now it's a fancy boutique hotel, completely re-done.
This was the view from just outside the Grand Hotel where we lunched.
It was a hazy day but you can see the San Francisco Peaks 75 or 80 miles in the distance.
I had been watching t.v. before we left for Jerome and heard a weathercaster say that it was going to be in the mid 90's in Phoenix but if you wanted to cool off and go skiing there was still plenty of snow at the Arizona Snow Bowl on those peaks.
About 160 miles separates those two locations and climate zones.
We were about mid-way in between and the day was very pleasant, with temperatures probably in the low 70's.
As we said our good-byes to the young ones we were heading back down the mountain through Old Cottonwood and New Cottonwood and back home.
When we lived between Old Cottonwood and Clarkdale over 20 years ago it was a sleepy place.
Now there were fancy stores and shops and restaurants everywhere.
It always makes me think of the line from Jimmy Buffet's song "...nothing remains quite the same..."
