Our trip is quickly coming to an end. As we reflect back on all that we have seen in the last 3 months, it has become clear to us that living in our little condo in Beaverton Oregon, that life although fun and fulfilling, was limited to what was happening in the here and now.
On our trip we visited many places of history, from the remnants of the Sinagua and Hohokam indians from 1100a.d., to the Little White House of President Harry Truman to the Panama Canal. It made us realize how small our world really is and how far we have advanced as humans. But we were also in awe as we learned how advanced the people of Arizona were during those early times.
We took a drive through Sedona and took pictures of the beautiful red rock cliffs. While there we visited the church on the hill, quite a remarkable structure and story about how the idea was first thought of, and how it finally became built in Sedona, Arizona.
Here in the Verde Valley, we visited a National monument called Montezuma Castle. This amazing site is where the Sinagua Indians lived from 1100a.d. to about 1450a.d. and built pueblo like structures about 100ft above Beaver Creek in the side of the limestone cliffs. When you see these, you are amazed not only because of their lifestyle of farming, but of the ingenuity and architectural aplomb it took to create the structure they lived in.
We also visited Montezuma's Well. This is a unique sink hole that is mainly CO2 and because of that, there are only 4 living creatures that survive in this lake and no where else on this planet. An Algae, a small shrimp, leeches and night swimming scorpions.
When we visited the Tuzigoot National Monument, it was another humbling site. This structure was discovered in the mid 1800's, but nothing was done to unearth it until around the 1930's. The people of Tuzigoot were farmers that built this enormous pueblo along the Verde river, digging canals from the river to irrigate their crops. These indians also disappeared around 1450a.d. like the Sinagua and the Hohokam tribes and no one really knows why. The experts surmise that there were great droughts for many years that drove them to othere areas where they joined with other tribes.
The last place we visited was a little town called Jerome. Jerome is about 5000ft above sea level and was once a vibrant copper mining town until the copper mines were closed back in the 1950's. It became a ghost town after that but has reinvented itself as an artist community. This place has a special connection for Deane as his father in law was raised here and he had visted here a number of times with his wife and her father.
Onto the last leg of this trip, Death Valley California, then home by the end of March.
Red Rock - http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=376168303407%3A486870456
Montezuma's Well - http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=866168303407%3A1234382214
Montezuma's Castle - http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=366168303407%3A2131019203
Tuzigoot - http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=963999603407%3A1526282085