I spent a few days at the caverns and enjoyed the area immensely. Weather was fine, though a little warm in the afternoon, and the services like WiFi left a little to be desired but still, I enjoyed it enough that I spent several days there.
Grand Canyon Caverns RV park.
Enjoying the bright, bright, sunshine.
Back on the road heading for Flagstaff…
I spent a few more days at Black Barts but the wanderlust had struck me again, and I wanted to get even more miles on the rig before I finally pushed Northward. So, I planned a short trip from Flagstaff to Montezuma’s Castle which is due south on the I-17 from Flagstaff to Phoenix. It’s only an hours drive so I didn’t leave that morning until 11AM or so. Here’s one of the interesting views as you’re dropping down from the highlands where Flagstaff is situated into a more desert like area. It was quite a difference in temperature too, went from around 75°F to up to 100°F. It’s only 60 miles but you could sure tell why people from Phoenix flock up to Flagstaff in the worse of the hot weather in summer. Explains why the housing market is so strong in Flagstaff. Houses had actually gained in value since the housing bubble burst.
That verdant countryside soon gave way to this more desert-like area. Several thousand years ago though, this area probably had a more pleasant year round temperature. Anyway, arrived at Montezuma’s Castle NP around 1pm and had to park well away from the building.
After wandering around the park services building I headed down this path into a quiet and resource filled river valley. The Indians had occupied this valley for thousands of years. The Hohokam seemed to have the most influence here, bringing farming techniques that sustained large groups of people in such a way that art and culture could flourish. So this valley went from hunter-gatherer to a more settled and mature arrangement that afforded the time and energy it takes to establish trade, and build the structures used here.
This shot gives a picture of the kind of soil available here. It’s all crumbly and unstable up on the rim but gives way to a more stable type of sandstone lower down.
And here is the first look at Montezuma’s Castle. A misnomer for certain but early visitors to this abandoned valley didn’t know who the original inhabitants had been since they’d left in the 1400’s.
Although nearby structures are poorly build, unbalanced and using inferior quality stones and mud bricks, the Castle is a high quality building, and though protected somewhat by the overhang above, has withstood the elements for 600 years. Because of those factors it is one of the best preserved ancient buildings in the Southwest.
The building itself is 5 stories tall, has 20 rooms, and is perched 100 feet over the valley floor. Another nearby cliff dwelling was even larger at 6 stories, and 45 rooms, but is badly deteriorated. All these dwellings were pretty much picked clean by early settlers of any artifacts and those that have been found were usually buried in out of the way places.
Nearby is Montezuma’s Well. This small lake of fresh water around 6 miles Northeast of the Castle is the result of a collapsed underground cavern fed by springs that flow continuously. Around 200 people lived there in ancient times.
After wandering around the valley for 2-3 hours, and really enjoying the peace and serenity of this quiet valley, I headed back to my RV and discovered that it was over 100°F inside. Not comfortable. I was parked in the shade but it wasn’t helping much. Decided to spend the night in the area and right across the freeway is the Distant Drums RV Resort. Drove in the gate and got my space ($36/nite), hooked up and got my front AC running. Ten minutes later discovered that it was blowing warm. Damnit. Found that if I switched if off and let it sit for 15 minutes that it would blow cold again. And the rear AC seemed to be fine…but didn’t help the front living area much. Fought with that until well after dark when it thankfully start to finally cool off outside. I’d run the front AC for a while then switch to the rear AC. Then back to the front. It had gotten up to 110°F inside the RV before I’d hooked up. The struggling AC didn’t get it down to much better the 85°F. Once it had cooled off outside, and the desert area I was in lost much of it’s day heat quickly, it wasn’t all that uncomfortable to sleep. But because of the balky AC I didn’t have any qualms about heading back to Flagstaff the next day. And actually left pretty early in the morning to take advantage of the moderate morning temps. All the while keeping close tabs on the operating temps and oil pressure of the engine.
It’s only 2 & 1/2 hours from the Castle to Homolovi Ruins east of Winslow, Arizona so I backtracked through Flagstaff and headed east on I-40 for a visit. I’d driven by these ruins many times over the years but this time I decided to actually visit them.
On the way back to Flagstaff.
The area in the picture below is bleak now, but back in the 14th century it was probably a little more pleasant. The Anasazi lived here using the resources of the Little Colorado river’s rich flood plain for nearly 200 years before migrating north to join a small tribe on a mesa. Those people eventually morphed into the Hopi Indians, who still consider this land theirs. They periodically visit these ruins for ancient rituals. Gathering pottery shards, they are placed on top of the ancient walls exposed to the elements as they believe all the artifacts belong to the land.
Homolovi.
The interpretive center.
After a long visit to this interesting interpretive center, I visited this reconstruction of an Anasazi dwelling just outside. This was used by archeologists to both learn about the building techniques but after that, to actually burn it down so as to learn if the Indians actually burned their dwells on purpose when they abandoned them.
Just a look at the topology and the test dwelling.
Vast vistas.
About 1.5 miles from the center is Homolovi II, a rather large ancient town with a view westerly that encompasses the Little Colorado valley. It’s easy to see why the people settled here with the richness of that valley in full evidence. They planted crops in the rich soil, hunted local fauna, fished, and traded with distant tribes.
A small dwelling.
Imagine what it would have been like to have your entire family occupying such a small dwelling. Doesn’t take much to realize that your ‘home’ would be someplace where you slept and all your other activities would be outside, including cooking. Only when the weather was bad, wind storms, rain, snow, and the like would your family all crowd into such small places.
Lots of work building these by hand.
There’s my RV way off in the distance. And the picture below is the Little Colorado river valley. It’s a swath of green in an otherwise sparse, foreboding landscape.
Pottery shards collected by the Hopi Indians who revere this place of their ancestors. It’s illegal to remove them. There seemed to be 10’s of thousands of them in little piles all over the site.
An underground kiva.
This is probably the best preserved kiva. These were used for meetings. Since so little is known about the day to day life here, it’s not known what they were actually used for but the best guess is a meeting place. It once had a thatch roof supported by wooden beams.
After visiting this large town, a mile back down the road is an even more ancient site. This area was probably occupied 8,000-12,000 years ago after the last ice age. The petraglyphs are found carved in very hard rocks and boulders surrounding this small mesa. It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to consider that the Anasazi may have settled so close to this site because of the magic such carvings would represent to them.
First a couple shots of the mesa and the type of rocks on it. And a view of the surrounding area. I find it very interesting that this spot attracted ancient man to leave what may be no more then graffiti but may also have had deep spiritual meaning to the people that took the time and effort to make them.
Ancient petraglyphs.
After a satisfying day of roaming around the Homolovi Ruins SP, I decided to spend the night at the campgrounds here. While not as interesting as the Walnut Canyon NP, just wandering around absorbing the lingering history of this place makes it a worthwhile place to visit. And the campground is very nice, with long wide spaces, nice bathrooms, but not much in the way of TV or WiFi.
Took me a while to finally settle on a place to park, as I was trying to find a place both near a bathroom, shaded, but in such a way that the tree wouldn’t scratch my new paint job, and maybe with line of site to the other side of the freeway where I thought I might be able to pick up some free WiFi. No such luck, after parking, hooking up to power and firing up the computer, I did find 3-4 WiFi sources, but none of them were free to use.
They are pretty nice spaces and if they were in a nicer area, or if they had cable TV or free WiFi available, I’d have stayed longer. As it was, I just spent the night and the next morning went to the Homolovi I site which was just 1/2 mile from where I camped.
Below is a shot off in the direction of site I. The rich flora is a result of the Little Colorado’s dumping of millions of tons on silt from the mountains onto that flood plain.
I knew from the brochure that this site wasn’t in all that great of condition but…well, it wouldn’t take long to visit and I was so close to Flagstaff that I could linger for hours if I wished. The picture below is about all there is here as far as facilities. There were some plaques here and there but the site really is a ruin. Most damage occurred when whites came through here and after scrounging for artifacts to sell, they’d demolish the dwellings, just because. The Hopi consider the site sacred, and twice a year many come down and camp amongst the ruins. The Navaho, who followed the Hopi by hundreds of years, may have occupied these ruins for a while when they first arrived in the area and for years afterwards so they also contributed, innocently, to the destruction of the site.
Here you can see the faint outlines of various dwellings. Just before 1400, there was a large flood here that actually inundated this village and may have induced the Hopi to head north to their current dwellings on the Hopi mesa, which is around 60 miles from here.
How often have you trodden a 600 year old trail, that you’re aware of?
Here’s how close this village was to the Little Colorado. Take a path around 100 yards and you’re in the flood plain. No evidence remains, or rather is visible, of the farms and crops that were once here.
Here’s a shot of the pottery shards that the Hopi pick up off the ground and place on the walls. The fine is stiff for disturbing them or worse yet for stealing some.
After this visit, and since it was still early in the day, I headed back to Flagstaff and stayed another week at Greer’s Pine Shadows RV Park. Although this link drips with praise for the park, it’s actually showing it’s age. The only bathroom is in the rec room, which closes early. It’s desirability for me was that I was able to park right across the street from the office and got nice high speed WiFi. Most of my neighbors complained of a bad signal but I didn’t have any trouble with it. I did park backwards in the site but it’s narrow enough that I didn’t have any trouble connecting to the services on the passenger side. The tall pines were nice and the surrounding area had a couple nice bars and small stores. So, all in all, it was worth it for me to stay there. Price was right too. And just a couple miles from several big box stores and services like fuel.
But, after spending all those weeks in Flagstaff, it was time to cross my fingers and head north. I’d planned on staying at a small town in Idaho to work on some electronic projects I had in mind and it was getting late in the year, so I had to leave to try to get there before it got too hot in that area of high desert. What a great place is Flagstaff. I’ll be back I’m sure.
Now for an apology, I have been lazy lately and took almost two months to post this new page. Even worse is the fact that the timeline for this section of the blog is back in May 2012. The next post will get into June thru July. Moving slowly I’m afraid. Right now, Feb. 2013, I’m actually in Mazatlan, Mexico, enjoying some fine weather. Sorry, folks, but you all know how it goes when you’re driving around all the time. Sometimes it’s difficult to concentrate on getting work on this blog done. I’ll try to do better and get the next posting up within a week.