Casa Grande, Cottonwood Arizona

Mar. 19, 20 & 21st.  Casa Grande AZ

The weather is cold and rainy and snow fell up around Sedona and Flagstaff over the weekend so decided to go to Casa Grande which is a little south of Phoenix for 3 days to wait out the weather.  Our campground is out in the country a few miles from town.  We visited the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument which is an ancient Hohokam farming village built around 1350.  The largest structure is the Great House, four stories high and 60 feet long which is now covered with a canopy to protect it from the elements.  There are other smaller ruins scattered around the Great House.  It is amazing that so much of this structure is still standing today.  It has been stabilized and protected since 1892 when it became the nation's first archaeological reserve.  Our last night in Casa Grande we went to a happy hour and met some nice people from Minnesota.

Four story Great House

The holes were for timbers for a ceiling/floor for a two story structure.

Mar. 22 through April 8th. Cottonwood AZ

The weather is sunny and nice so we go north to Cottonwood which is just out of Sedona.  We camped here last year for a few days and are staying 18 days this year.  There is so much to see and do around this area.  We went to the visitors center and got information on Jeep roads in the area.  In Sedona there are numerous Jeep tours and Jeep rentals available.  When we were out driving these back roads we ran into many jeep tours. 

Coming into Sedona

Snoopy Rock

Monday, March 26th

Today we packed a lunch and headed off to see a couple of ruins and ride a back country Jeep road.  We stopped first at Palatki Ruin.  There are petroglyphs on a cave like wall and a ruin built up against a canyon wall.  We weren't able to get real close to the ruin. Palatki was built by the Sinagua Indians (Spanish for "without water") about 1150 and abandoned at about 1300, not sure why they left but they could have been eliminated by other enemy tribes in the area or vacated due to a lengthy drought.    These same Indians built Montezuma Castle and the Honanki cliff dwellings.  Next we visit the nearby Honanki cliff dwellings which were built by the Sinagua Indians who lived here from about AD 1100 to 1300.  These dwellings were along a cliff and we were able to walk right up to them.

Petroglyphs

Palatki Ruins

Honanki Ruins

Honanki Ruins

view from the Jeep back country road

Tuesday, March 27th

Today we drive to the town on the side of a mountain, Jerome which is an old mining town.  It is now filled with many interesting shops and restaurants.  We eat lunch at the Haunted Hamburger and then start our journey out on a back country Jeep road.  We make a loop and end-up back in Jerome. 

Jerome AZ

Friday, March. 30th

Today we are back in Sedona and drive out Schnebly Hill Road.  It is recomended for high clearance and 4wheel drive but we saw some cars trying to drive the road.  There were lots of Jeep tours out there also.  The road took us 4 miles out into the red rock country. 

Red rocks around Sedona

Saturday, March 31

Today we are meeting friends of ours, Ron and Elaine from British Columbia who we met in Florida last year.  They have Canadian friends with them so we take two cars.  We are going to Crown King which is an old mining town about 50 miles away in the mountains and accessible by Forest Service roads only.  We did some geocaching on the way into Crown King and had a delicious lunch at a restaurant call The Mill.  We checked out the other stores in town and there were lots of people and 4 wheelers in town that Saturday.  It is surprising how many people seem to live in the area, the hills were dotted with homes.  We had a fun day with our friends.

Downtown Crown King AZ

Dick finding a cache

Ron and Elaine

Monday, April 2

Today we are taking Ron and Elaine up to Flagstaff to visit 3 National Monuments.  The first stop is Wupatki Pueblos.  There are five Pueblo dwellings spread over several miles.  They were built in the 1100's when puebloan peoples came together to build a vast farming community.  The first eruption of Sunset Crater helped improve the farming because the thin ash layer absorbed moisture and climate changed to provide more rainfall during the growing season.  By 1180 thousands of people were farming on the Wupatki land and by 1250 most had moved on to establish new homes elsewhere.
We did some geocaching along the way and even found one at the picnic grounds where we stopped for lunch.

Lomaki Pueblo

Wupatki Pueblo has 100 rooms

Wupatki Pueblo up close

Sunset Crater Nat. Mon. was our next stop after lunch.  The black ash and cinders covered the landscape for miles around the crater, carried by wind dusting 800 square miles of northern Arizona with ash.  Erupting sometime between 1040 and 1100 Sunset Crater is the most recent in a six-million-year history of volcanic activity in the Flagstaff area.  A trail and boardwalk over the lava flow went out from the visitor's center.

Sunset Crater

Lava flow in foreground and Sunset Crater

The last stop of the day was Walnut Canyon where we saw many cliff dwellings in the canyon walls.  ArcheologistsSinagua, lived by farming, hunting and gathering.  We had a fun day in Flagstaff and ended the day with dinner together.

Walnut Canyon

We were able to walk right up to the dwellings

With 300 dwellings in the canyon it was almost apartment like.

Wednesday, April 4th

Ron and Elaine came to our motor home to show Dick how to load and log geocaches into the GPS.  After lunch we went to find a few across the highway from our campground.  We ended up finding 9 caches.  We found a series of 5 that were all related and placed by the same person.  We had fun finding the caches so I ordered Dick a hand held GPS for geocaching for his up coming birthday.  Ron and Elaine are leaving for their home in British Colombia tomorrow.  We have had a good time with them.

Elaine taking out the tube to record our find

Ron taking out the last cache, a skull.

Saturday, April 7th.

After lunch we drive into Sedona one last time.  We drive the red rock loop road and see some wonderful scenery of Cathedral Rock.  We stopped at an overlook on the airport road where one of the 4 vortexes are located and some of the trees there are twisted.  From Sedona we drove to Jerome to have dinner at a BBQ restaurant.  We had about an hour to walk around the town.  My favorite store is a kaleidoscope store where they had all sizes and kinds.  Out front of their store they had a basket planted with many colors of live plants and flowers and a kaleidoscope attached. 

Cathedral Rock

Twisted tree at vortex

Looking through the kaleidoscope

Flowers in basket

Two more pictures looking through the kaleidoscopes

We have had a good time visiting this area of Arizona for the last 3 weeks and on Monday we are going to move to Las Vegas for 10 days.  Happy Travels, Barb