Arizona Girls Trip - Day 8

 The house is cleaned and we are packed into cars.  Everyone is back on the road again.  Debi took a flight back home and Ramona, Sharman, and Linda are on their way to the Grand Canyon.  That just leave two cars and five of us.  We have a fun route planned for the return trip and when we get to Camp Verde, a breakfast break is in order.  Thanks a latte fits perfectly.

Just might be one of the best French Toast dishes I've ever eaten.  Oh goodness.

Mural on the side of the building reflects the fresh foods they use.

During my research time, I found Montezuma Castle National Monument.  We're making a stop there to check it out and wonder of wonders, my National Park Pass comes in handy and our total cost is $10 for all of us.  Time to check it out.

Nestled in a limestone cliff overlooking the creek, Montezuma Castle could have housed about 35 people.  Including families in nearby pueblos and rock shelters, perhaps 150-200 people made up this community.  In turn, these people belonged to a network of villages united by kinship, agriculture, and cultural traditions that stretched dozens of miles along the Verde River and its tributaries.  These farming communities thrived until around 1350 to 1400 when people began leaving the Verde Valley, moving toward other population centers to the north and east, including those along the Little Colorado River and the Hopi Mesas.

The Arizona Sycamore Tree.  These trees can capture our imagination as we marvel at their size and beauty.  With their large size and leaves that change color in the fall, even their soft bark can amaze us enough that they give the perception of a "gentle giant." 

Why build a home in a cliff face?  There are so many possibilities:  proximity to water and farmland, to stay above floods, or for protection, the view, or the southern exposure that afforded winter solar heat and summer shade.  A ready-made shelter also meant fewer walls and roofs to construct for housing, storage, workspace, customs, and rituals.

To organize and partition the alcove space, builders created walls with river cobbles and limestone held together with mud mortar.  Mud plaster covered and sealed the walls.  For roof  beams and floors between multistoried rooms, they mostly used local sycamore along with some alder and ash, but also carried in fir and pine from a distance.

As we get closer - it becomes more and more fascinating.  So - who lived here?  "Hisat'sinom" is a Hopi term meaning "the ancient people," referring to the Ancestral Puebloans and Sinagua people who lived in the area of northern Arizona known as the Sierra Sin Agua. They were skilled farmers who built advanced stone pueblos and cliff dwellings.

This diagram helps to explain a bit of what we see.

This is Castle A - Because Montezuma Castel suffered extensive looting, much of what we know about life here - what people ate, what they made, who they traded with, and when they lived - comes from the excavation of this site.  It is where a pueblo with about 45 rooms in multiple levels once stood against this cliff face.  If you look carefully, you may see beam sockets carved into the cliff at several levels.  

Wind and water have sculpted countless alcoves, holes, and crannies in the soft layers of the Verde Formation limestone.  People built homes in large alcoves and used smaller recesses for temporary shelter and storage.  When people dug into a cliff and enlarged or modified the opening, they created what archeologists call cavates.  

Most cavates are similar to one another; extending about 10 feet into the cliff.  Some contained both local and imported pottery shreds dating from 1150-1400.  During the winter you can see one - about halfway up the cliff.  Look closely for a masonry wall with a doorway.

Watch out!  The Apache name for this large shrub, ch'il gohigise, means "a bush that scratches you."  Notice its sharp claw=like thorns.  On long journeys, ancient travelers relied on the fruits for food.  The green seed pods can be eater fresh or dried, or ground into flour to make mush, cakes, or bread.  The branches make good drumsticks and furniture.  Bees that feed on the blossoms produce and delicate and distinctive honey.  It's pretty early in the season here - so not much going on with this bush right now.

Yes, it all overlooks the river.

We walk up to the covered area just in time for a guide talk.  Perfect timing and a chance to get out of the sun.

Before the official end of guided tours of the cliff dwelling on October 1, 1951, park rangers had long been aware of and considered what to do about the impacts of so many people walking through the fragile site.  If the Castle was going to be off-limits, a model was needed to show and interpret what the structures looked like inside.  This diorama offers a look at the interior of the Castle.

A few screen shots from a movie inside the visitor center.

That was a great stop, but all good things must end.  We are getting back on the road and are aiming for Sedona next.  The landscape is amazing, with its changes and beauty.

Near Sedona, The Chapel of the Holy Cross sits.  The Chapel of the Holy Cross, sitting high atop the red rocks in Sedona, Arizona, was inspired and commissioned by local rancher and sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude.  In 1932 she was inspired to build such a church by the construction of the Empire State Building.  Staude initially attempted to do this in Budapest, Hungary with the help of Lloyd Wright, son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  However, their attempt was aborted due to the outbreak of World War II. With this unfortunate turn of events, she decided to build the church in her native home land, Arizona.   The chapel is built on Coconino National Forest land; was built 18 months at a cost of $300,000.  The chapel was completed in 1956.

I had NO IDEA this would be such a hot spot to visit, but the road is PACKED and it's crazy.  We get close enough for me to take this picture.

And we have to move on.  I follow the road up to the chapel and drop off Stephannie and Cindy as there is no chance at all of finding a parking place that doesn't require a hike up the mountain.

They are able to do a quick walk through while I make a loop and return to pick them up.  This is insane and if it how Sedona will be, I'm not wanting to stop.

As we get closer to Sedona, it's a nightmare  with traffic and no place to park whatsoever.  Onto Flagstaff.

Lunch is at The Toasted Owl.

They even have an owl quilt - how serendipitous.  

Resuming our journey - Winslow is next so that we can "Stand on the Corner."  Hello Glen Frey.

It was 1972 - The Eagles were massive and I remember Take It Easy - oh so well.

Well, I'm a-runnin' down the road tryna loosen my load

I've got seven women on my mind

Four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me

One says she's a friend of mine

Take it easy, take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

Lighten up while you still can

Don't even try to understand

Just find a place to make your stand

Take it easy

Well, I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

Such a fine sight to see

It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford

Slowin' down to take a look at me

Come on, baby, don't say maybe

I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me

We may lose and we may win

Though we will never be here again

So open up, I'm climbin' in

So take it easy

Well, I'm a-runnin' down the road tryna loosen my load

Got a world of trouble on my mind

Lookin' for a lover who won't blow my cover

She's so hard to find

Take it easy, take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy

Come on, baby, don't say maybe

I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me

Ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh

Ooh, ooh

Oh, we got it easy

We oughta take it easy

Truth in words - I should embrace the "take it easy" part, but this year just doesn't want to let me.  

At any rate - hey there Jackson Browne.  Story of the statue is:  The artist had never sculpted a human before and used his son Dustin as the model. The idea for a statue came from a 1940s photo of a hat-wearing Winslow man on the corner leaning against a lamp post. Greg said that the older committee members wanted the 1940s hat-wearing man as the statue -- which would have created an awkward double-generation half-Eagles attraction. Then one of the younger members stood up and said, "No way! The guy's gotta be a hippie!"  And so, dude-with-guitar it is. The acoustic guitar, resting on the toe of the dude's cowboy boot, is unnaturally thin, a result of the mold cracking and being repaired at the last minute.

Fun Fact about Jackson Browne:  The song was written by Jackson Browne, who did indeed stand on a corner in Winslow one time. When the town decided to build its Standin’ on the Corner Park, they asked Browne which corner it was. He told them he was so stoned at the time that he couldn’t remember, and they should just pick one.

Smile y'all - we made it.

A nice person offers to take our picture.

A girl in a red, flatbed Ford - well, the song didn't say red, but . . .  In 1926, Winslow's J.C. Penney store relocated to the new two-story Trimble Building at 102 West Second Street, where it operated for almost 50 years.  It closed in the 1970s at what had come to be known as the Rasco Building.  A fire destroyed the Rasco Building in October 2004, but fortunately the east wall, with the Standin' on the Corner Park mural on its east side since 1999, remained intact.

Some fun info:  The statue is backed by a mural (painted by John Pugh) bolted to a wall, depicting the other key lyrics in the song: "a girl" in "a flatbed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me." The girl and the truck are reflected in a painted storefront window, and the truck's Arizona license plate, IG7WOM, references yet another Take It Easy lyric. A painted eagle is perched on one of the painted window sills.

Did you figure it out?

As we are standing and talking, a gentleman walks up to us and asks where we are from.  When I say, originally Montana, he perks up and says he is from Libby, Montana and is very familiar with Bigfork, where I went to high school.  Says he even made the statue that sits at Sliter Park in Bigfork.  He introduces himself as Ron Adamson and tells us that he also did the statue of Jackson Browne.  What a random meetup. Pic time.

Yep, I even check the boot and he gives me his card - a quick google search and it's all legit.  Very cool.

THE PIC - yep.  When the Corner reopened after the fire, Winslow expanded its theme into what was called Route 66 Plaza. While elaborate early plans never materialized, the adjacent (and now rubble-free) lot became a downtown park. A huge Route 66 shield sign -- visible from space -- was painted on the Corner's street pavement, and a real 1960 flatbed Ford truck was parked near the dude to complete the photo-op tableau.  We didn't see the real truck- perhaps we were just blind?

On the opposite corner -

At this point, I'm wanting an ice cream - strange, right, but seems like there should be a shop here.  Turns out there is.  Yes!  It's in an old bank building, that has also been a jewelers, and still has the safe inside.

Funky, cool place.  Look at all that opulent goldleaf.

Perfect way to cool off today.

The final corner on the Plaza - 

A few more sites in the area before we go - 

That's it.  We are off to our hotel for the night - it's in Gallup. NM.  No AirBNB for tonight, so sad.  The hotel is by a Del Taco - we're really doing it up nice tonight.  Sketching, for sure.