Valley Verde...

I wish I was a better photographer so I could just ATTEMPT to photograph the amazing beauty in Arizona. We are traveling north from a weeks stay near Sedona. While we were there we were fortunate enough to meet up with Jane and Terry Owen, who are now travelers as well! Jane and I taught together at Meadow View Elementary years ago. When we first talked about taking the year on the road with the boys Jane and Terry were incredibly supportive of the idea and have kept close tabs. We are so glad they have finally made it out of Colorado after THREE attempts and various truck issues. Seeing them here in AZ felt like a hug from home. We adore them, the boys were super excited to see them and in all it was a good grounding, and a wonderful dinner. They had to leave too soon!

    We met up with several other Fulltime Families at the Valley Verde Thousand Trails. There was little internet so while some of the guys went into town during the days to work, Alan would head out at night to find some internet to work.  I am finding that part to be stressful but it’s really Alan who has to go out searching and he doesn’t seem to mind a bit! So I am letting that go.

     The social piece of this is so incredibly important and really an eye opener for us as we traveled alone for most of the year. Now that we are traveling in a group many things are so much easier! The kids for example, run from rig to rig like wild animals. They are enjoying the childhood of our youth, out in the morning, back to refuel mid day and then home exhausted at night after hours of playing tag, making lego movies or swimming. It’s so great to see them doing all those things we have fondly remembered and that so few kids get to do these days. I meet with other Mom’s for coffee under the trees, we chat about roadschooling and different philosophies. We compare notes and share ideas. Then we plan our days either solo or giant field trips. This week we all went to Slide Rock canyon. The beauty is indescribable! As you can see, the water makes a perfect natural slide spilling from pool to pool. It was way to cold for most of us but the boys each tried it, as did my incredibly brave friend Kimberly! 

Aiden was hooked and spend the rest of the day sliding down until his belly was worn raw! Then we hiked back out, it was gorgeous!

Next we are moving on to Lake Powell in the Glenn Canyon National rec area with four other families. We are learning to move within the group and as a group. Having community on the road is

an amazing change for us and has really enriched our travels. Here is a lovely blog post from our beautiful friend Jema, complete with picture of us leaving Las Vegas!

http://www.studiojema.com/weaving-community

Arizona National Parks

Casa Grande National Monument is an ancient ruin of the Sonoran Desert people who lived in this area of Arizona over 650 years ago. Even though the purpose of the structure is unclear they know that the structure was built around 1350 CE. And like most of the ruins in the West it was abandoned 100 years later around 1450 CE. Of course the boys were able to get another badge and learn about the native population that lived int his area before the white man came. There are five different compounds here in the Casa Granda area but you are only aloud to see this one.

Badge Time

The boys learned all about the precious resource that water becomes out here and how ancient peoples harnessed it. They went home and built replicas of the Casa Grande in their Minecraft worlds and continued to see examples of the irrigation techniques in other areas around Arizona. I loved that they were able to learn about the continuing spiritual relevance for the native people in the area as well. It was awe inspiring to hear them speak about how they felt connected to their ancestors while they are in this space

The next National Park was Montezuma's Castle, a set of Cliff dwellings around the Valley Verde area. This is an ancient cliff dwelling in an alcove looking over Beaver Creek in the Verde Valley. The ancient Sinagua people occupied this area from around 1200 CE to 1450 CE and like the Sonoran people they just left the area, and the structures were abandoned. We are seeing this trend in all of the ruins in the Arizona area.









Next door to the Castle is the Montezuma Well where these ancient people believed all life came from. Montezuma Well pool is located in a travertine (re-deposited limestone) spring mound, 135' deep and 470' across. This unique aquatic environment is home to a small amphipod, Hyalella montezuma, The scientists believe this animal is not found anywhere else in the world.









Just 30 miles away from these two sites is the Tuzigoot National Monument which is home to a 110 room hilltop pueblo built around 1100 CE and abandoned around 1400 CE. Like the other sites there is no written record as to why the people left or what happened to them. We have learned a ton of information about the people who lived in this country before the first explorers arrived.

Tuzigoot

petrogyphs

Badges, we need more stinking badges

Meeting Area

Now, we missed a couple of ruins in this state which we will hit next fall or winter but the last one was near flagstaff and was another hilltop pueblo. Wupatki was built around 1040 CE but due to the active volcano, which you can see from the hills above Wupatki, the ancient Sinaguan people were forced out around 1225 CE. 

View from the top

Its Godzira

Our last stop besides the Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon was Sunset Crater Volcano Which was the cause of the ancient people of this area leaving around 1225 CE. The landscape was covered in old lava fields and most of the mountains here were active volcanos at one time. what a neat place to explore

No Jacob don't fall in the lava!

This land of ours is wonderful and full of history and I know we have said it before but the Junior ranger programs at our national sites are well done and full of information for the kids. 

Arizona Sights

As Laura mentioned, Arizona has some wonderful sites to be seen as well as some great National Parks and National Monuments.


During our last days in Tucson Laura and the boys were able to visit the Bio Dome just outside the city where they took a tour with other Full Time Families. FYI nothing at all like the 1980 movie, fascinating nonetheless! 

We were also able to take a day trip to Tombstone Arizona where I got to see one of my favorite towns in history. First we stopped at the the old BootHill Cemetery and saw the graves of Marshal White, Billy Clanton and the McLaury Brothers.

Next we got to see the shootout at the OK Corral and take our pictures with the Earp's and Doc Holiday. Laura wanted a picture but only with Doc as I believe she had a little crush. I was also able to get a shot with Ike Clanton since he was the least favorite of the audience.

 This was another one of the things I really wanted to see on our adventure through the US so it was a great day for me. After checking out all the sites we stopped at Big Nose Kate's Saloon and  I had a Big Ass Burger with a Big Ass Beer... or two.

Big Nose Kates

After Tombstone we spent a week in Florence where the boys were able to spend Easter with Nana and Papa Bob. The campground we stayed at was in the desert but the sunsets were beautiful and seemed to last forever. Nana and Papa Bob took us all to the Goldfield Mine Ghost Town were we got a tour of an old mine and had a drink in the saloon that several of our old west stars have stayed during the filming of their movies. This was a pretty cool little tourist trap and for our last part of the day we rode the train around the town where a crazy old norseman (Viking I would say) told stories of the mountains in the background and how aliens are rumored to visit there. Ya, I said the same thing while I was listening to the stories, this man is off his rocker. When Alan says off his rocker, he is downplaying it. The guy told us that lizard people were rumored to come out of a portal int he mountain and he would sure hate to see one in town shopping at Victoria's Secret. Eleven years on that rail loop and that guy has become a few ore carts short of a gold mine. The gold mine tour has a huge impact on the boys. They were fascinated by the whole process and it has carried over into other aspects of daily life as we'll share with you later! It was a fantastic trip and getting to spend time with Nanna Debbie and Pappa Bob was fantastic.  

Corporal Punishment

GoldField Saloon

Arizona Landscape

After 11 months of traveling around this country, I have learned not to trust my preconceived notions of a place. I am not sure what I expected of Arizona before we arrived but it certainly wasn’t this. This is a landscape of surprise. The sun that pours in early each morning doesn’t have a harsh quality as expected but rather the promise of something that can be mine if I get up early enough to beat the heat. As a tried and true despiser of heat, I am happy to oblige!

     Bridgeeta, (who is now being referred to as the desert queen), and I make coffee and come out to the patio that is cool and shady. The mourning doves are singing their song, as are at least four other kinds of birds I don’t recognize. As we sit down, all the birds seem to disappear and it is only upon patient waiting that the whole area comes alive again. Suddenly a whole group of birds with curved bills appear and began digging at the dry ground, scratching out some unseen delicious bug. A  family of five Gembler quail come walking out of the huge prickly pear cactus near us, their fancy curly cue looking like church bonnets from a century past. They too scratch and search through what seemed to be barren dry earth and come up with a mouthful of breakfast, all under the not so watchful eyes of the Desert Queen, who can’t be bothered to lunge unless they brazenly pass within a beardhair’s length. Something they quickly attempt to do, no fear here.

     Last night as we watched the stars a coyote crossed through the site following the calls of his family just off from the light of our camper. The lizards here are especially busy running to and fro at any given moment, much bigger than their Florida counterparts. It’s a busy place to be, here in the Arizona Desert.

     As we always do, the boys and I have been studying the local plant life as part of our curriculum and the junior badge program. We are able to give names to the plants that seemed so extraordinarily foreign upon our arrival.   

The Ocitillo in particular seemed alien and now we see it everywhere, in some cases as living fences and surrounding the graves up on BootHill in Tombstone.

The prickly pear grow massive, in many cases the size of a VW Bug. The tips sprout flowers, not tiny and delicate but fist sized and vibrant, the colors ranging from blush to yellow to bright orange. The plant life has found clever ways to adapt to the heat and lack of water. 
     The Palo Verde tree, hated by my in-laws as it makes a lovely but problematic carpet of yellow blossoms all over their yard to be tracked in by the kids, has evolved into a Jack-of-all-trades. It has a vibrant green bark that allows it to create it’s own food even when there isn’t enough water to sustain leaves. Even when times are tough, it finds a way to power on!


The barrel cactus here are sprouting a ring of bright yellow fruit when it isn’t plucked off by nocturnal ringtails. There are agave plants that rival their Prickly pear neighbors in size. 
     

But the king of all is clearly the Saguaro. A row of them at the entrance are twice as tall as our rig, pushing 30 feet. One has 13 arms, making it a contender in our arm counting contest. We know from our studies that the first arms don’t arrive until the plant is 75 and they can live to be 200 years old

I am in no hurry to leave this area but the daily heat, pushing into the 90’s even in April, is a stark reminder that this beauty comes with a price if you stick around long enough. This has been a very surprising trip into the desert. I didn’t anticipate the

abundance of life and beauty here. There are definitely rewards for sticking it out in this arid landscape.