Since Stacy was visiting her aunt, and it wasn’t convenient to park my RV outside her aunt’s house for any length of time, I was staying in the Indian Skies RV park in Coolridge, Arizona. My spot was back in the transient area so my space, although nice and flat, was on gravel rather then a nice blacktop pad. But I had a piece of cardboard so I climbed under the rig and checked out the parking brake, filled the transaxle, and checked it over. Didn’t look to bad under there.
A couple days after I got there, the weather changed for the worse and the wind picked up very suddenly. Before I knew what was happening, my awning sprung loose and wrapped itself up inside it’s cover. Unfortunately, it also rolled the pull cord up inside it’s cover. No way to pull it out. In fact, I could barely see it poking out of the awning. I let the wind die down over the next several hours while I debated what to do about it. The next day was nice and calm with the occasional gust out of nowhere but it was quiet enough that I went over to one of my neighbors and asked to use his ladder. He came over to help after I explained the situation and it was very helpful to have him there. I had to climb up to the roof line and did my best to unroll the awning…finally it gave enough that I could worry the pull rope out of there. Took about an hour of working on it to get it out.
There were a couple wind storms that happened when I was there, including a wall of dust that swept through the area a time or two. The kind of wall of dust you see off in the distance that look like the pictures of the Dust Bowl during the 1930’s.
After staying at Indian Skies for 3-4 days, I headed over to join Stacy and her family for dinner at their place and on the way, one of those wind storms picked up and blew dust over the road so thick that I couldn’t see well enough to pull off the road. Yikes. So, with my headlights on, I crawled along the road only being able to see around 12′ ahead. The section I was on was a two lane road without much of a shoulder so I just stayed on it going perhaps 15MPH. I thought at the time that I should get my air filter checked soon as I could but, I quickly forgot. Plus, had a schedule to keep. Had to get Stacy up to Coeur d’Alene by a certain date and all. After dinner I headed back to the RV park and since that storm had already passed though, didn’t have to fight with any dust.
Anyway, when it came time to leave, I stopped at the Casa Grande Ruins NP before picking up Stacy. It’s only 2 miles from the RV park and since the trip to Winslow wasn’t very long, I was able to take my time.
Casa Grande is a town built by the Hohokam people beginning in this area around 5,500 B.C.E. It was mostly abandoned by the early 1400’s.
Interesting cactus out in the Casa Grande parking lot.
Once again, sorry about the pink overcast in the pictures, it’s my camera. I did filter some out using Picasa but it didn’t remove all of it.
What remains of Casa Grande.
No one knows what this building was used for. Could just be, for it’s time, a very large house, or it could be a meeting place, or even an astronomical observatory. There was at one time a wall that surrounded the entire enclave but that’s all gone now. The area had been badly vandalized before it got protection from the government so allot of important historical information is lost forever.
West side of the building.
What’s left of some of the homes.
Storage huts.
- Back to the grand house.
Since it was May, pretty much had the place to myself. Can’t understand why people are so keen on ripping apart ancient works like this. Just to have a clump of cement on their mantle?
Some think that upper hole is to observe the skies.
Can’t go in there to explore. Darn it.
More homes.
And the ubiquitous ball court.
And then I went and picked up Stacy. Headed into the mountains towards Winslow, Arizona. But that’s a story unto itself so I’ll leave it for next time.
Thanks for visiting!