More vacation...

We took a day and packed it with a couple of ruins, one of which was up in the Superstition Mountains, which are beautiful in and of themselves!

We visited the Casa Grande National Monument, which is a pretty amazing place. It became America's first archeological preserve in 1892. There is this huge, ancient four story building that may have served as some sort of early observatory and calendar!!



The four outer walls of the building are aligned with the four compass points and the west wall shown below has two holes, a round one on the upper left that aligns with the sunset on the summer solstice and the square one on the upper right (barely visible in the photo) that aligns once every 18 1/2 years with the setting moon at the extreme point of its cycle. How weird is that?



Built by the Hohokam people, essentially farmers, they learned to tame and divert the Gila and Salt rivers and their tributaries and formed irrigation communities that regulated the system. They also used groundwater runoff from desert storms to irrigate their crops.





They also had the biggest Saguaro cactus I'd ever seen up close. It really dwarfs Ralph and Beau:



Here's the guys close up:



The Superstition Mountains are famous for mining, mostly copper, but gold and silver as well. There were several old copper smelters along the way and a huge open pit copper mine...I even got a sample of copper ore to bring home.





In the town of Globe there is a pueblo ruin called Besh Be Gowah. It's really tucked away and has been partially excavated and reconstructed.

There is a long entry hallway that would have been covered when the place was built and it was designed as a security feature to control access to the pueblo:



There were loads and loads of small rooms used for various things from storage to cooking to living to ceremonies. There was a small central plaza that was used for gatherings.



Many of the rooms were entered via ladders...





They've recovered a lot of artifacts from this site and have a small museum that contains a selection of what they've found:



There is also a small raised platform, that in more than 40 other sites in Arizona are very large and are usually the base for a special residence, and sometime even huge ones that are the base for an entire pueblo. This one is very small and out of character and they haven't figured out what it's purpose was.



And, a lovely fact in Arizona. We stopped at Burnt Wells rest area for a quick break and to walk the dog and in the middle of the pet exercise area is this sign:



Always something interesting and enlightening...it's why we keep going back to Arizona!!

A little history in two towns

While visiting old town Casa Grande we discovered these three murals on a wall. They represent the history of the city from 1879 to 1967. Farming in general and cotton farming in particular are BIG in Pinal county and you can see that reflected here.







A local stone mason built several stone structures in the early 20s, sometimes with stones that were gathered by the people having him build for them:

Presbyterian Church, now a museum:



The Women's club:



We also visited Florence where there are dozens and dozens of historic and restored homes and buildings. They have a weekend tour of homes in February each year, so we missed that but it was still cool to tour around this little town.

This building is now the visitor center, but originally it was the City Bakery which opened in April of 1890:



Ralph and Beau taking advantage of a bench in the shade no less!!



The Silver King Hotel was started in 1876 by William Long, one of the owners of the Silver King Mine. It was added on to in 1888 and further expanded in 1895 after a fire destroyed a portion of the original structure. It's now owned by the city of Florence itself.



I loved this home!!! It's referred to as the Joseph Spinas "rental" house and it was built in 1913 as a rental home for a local cattle rancher. I'd enjoy this house today with it's broad and shady front porch!



I also loved this storefront on the main street of town and I'm just not used to street trees being orange trees! They were absolutely loaded with fruit too.



The Pinal County Courthouse was built in 1891 and was used for that purpose until it was vacated in 2005 because of its condition. A couple of interesting things about this building: One...they never ended up having money in the budget to actually put a clock in the tower, so that face on the building is actually a metal facing with hands permanently set at 11:44!! And two: rumor has it the tower was where public hangings were performed.



They are in the process of repairing and restoring the building and hope to open it to the public again some time soon.

More vacation tales

After a few days of thawing out and totally relaxing we decided to head down to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and the Saguaro National Park to spend the day. And the day was GORGEOUS!!

Saguaro National Park is actually split into two, we visited the western one. I love the Sonoran desert anyway and this park is just too cool if you love this stuff!! Remember: Saguaros have to be around fifty years old before they get their first "arm"!!











The Arizona Sonora Desert Museum is another gem. It's part garden, part zoo, part museum. Very cool place to visit, and it was jamming with folks because of Spring break, but still a wonderful spot to spend time.

They have areas for reptiles, tortoises, butterflies, humming birds, water critters, deer and big cats. They even have a man-made cave that you can walk through and learn about the geology of the area.

Ralph, enjoying the garden and a sunny Arizona day.



The beauty and variety of the Sonoran desert!







This cougar found the coolest, shadiest spot in his area and camped out there.



Even the beavers and otters were looking for cool waters and shade, so much so that they couldn't be seen:





Great day to be in Arizona. Oh wait, almost every day is a great day to be in Arizona!!

The road trip to Arizona

We decided to drive kind of the "scenic route" down to Arizona, going through Oregon, Idaho and Utah on the way. The week we left the weather had been awful and we had more snow on March 10th:



Is it a wonder we wanted to get away to somewhere warm??

Anyway, we took off on the 13th and the drive down was great, Beau was a great little traveler in his own personal Beauville, which was essentially the entire back seat of the car. He had his bed, blankets, treats, all his little comforts. He actually had more room in the car than either of us and he's the littlest. Can you say spoiled dog?

We had sunny weather and no rain the entire way. The only snow we saw was on the side of the roads as we went through some of the passes:



After spending the first night in Idaho we continued on and spent night two in Utah, and had dinner at a great Chinese buffet. We had some second thoughts as we were walking over from the hotel, Chinese buffet in Price, Utah?? But the hotel person said it was great and it was! Absolutely jamming with people and very, very good food. We stuffed ourselves!

As we continued through Utah's canyons it brought back a lot of memories of when we lived on the rez and used to travel some of these road on a regular basis...man, that was a long time ago. But they are still as beautiful now as they were then.





When we lived on the rez, major shopping normally meant a 270 mile round trip to Farmington New Mexico. On the way back we invariably stopped at the trading post at Mexican Water to get a milkshake for the last leg of the ride home. We couldn't resist stopping in for a repeat performance. Here's Ralph coming out of the restaurant with the milkshakes, still great! But inflation has struck and they were $5 each rather than $2. But we enjoyed them and the memories just the same.




We continued on through Kayenta, home of church rock:



Then on to Tuba City, Flag and Phoenix and finally Casa Grande! Woohoo! Break out the shorts and sandals!!



Ralph & Beau seem to have survived the trip just fine. Let the warm relaxing begin!!