Pandemic Diaries - Year 2, Road Trip to Arizona Part V

4 December 2021

 

I know, we've been in two months, and I still haven't finished blogging about our drive to Arizona.  Life gets busy, things happen, and it's easy to procrastinate.  So here it is, (drum roll please), the conclusion to the Road Trip To Arizona!   Ta-dah!

 

We entered Arizona near the North Rim of Grand Canyon, since we've never visited this side of the canyon.  We stopped at Jacob's Lake Lodge, and tried to book a room - but they stop taking reservations for each day until 3 PM, so we decided to visit the north side of the canyon and drive back to the lodge by 3 PM or so.  (Mobile phone service is very spotty in this region, so phoning in a reservation wasn't an option.)

 

We picked up some items for a picnic lunch, and headed south.  The ranger at the park entrance said that the bison weren't in the large meadow, but we might see some among the trees.  Oh well, the quaking aspens were all turning golden yellow, so it was a pretty drive into the park.

 

The views of the canyon itself aren't as dramatic from the north as they are from the South Rim.  The vistas aren't as broad and sweeping, so we didn't see the mile drop to the floor of the canyon.  All the islands of land inside the canyon aren't visible.  Overall, it isn't as impressive.

 

That's not to say that the northern views aren't still pretty.  It just isn't as dramatic.  But there were side roads to viewpoints we didn't take, so we may have missed some of the panoramas.  

 

We stopped for lunch at a picnic area by the side of the road, and were visited by a very chatty raven.  Tall green trees where we were, the trees in the distance were green, with some little clusters of reds.  We could see canyon walls layered in reds, beige, and purples in the distance.  

And no bison hiding nearby.

 

We meandered and walked and stopped, and eventually drove back to the Jacob's Lake Inn.  We were able to book an adorable little cabin among the trees, and had a very restful night there.  If you're ever visiting the North Rim of Grand Canyon, this really is a great place to stay!  (Note: the elevation there is nearly 8000 feet!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following day, we continued on Highway 89A South, though we basically drove east to be able to drive around the canyon.  It's huge, so this is a fairly long drive.  We ended up staying in Tuba City, an interesting town on Navajo Nation land.  

For some reason, Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time, while the Navajo Nation does.  So Tuba City, and all the surrounding tribal land, is one hour ahead of the rest of Arizona from spring through fall.  It was very confusing to us, but oh well, humans are adaptable.  

The main reason we headed to Tuba City was that there's an ATM for our bank there, and no others along the way south until we got closer to Phoenix.  But Tuba City also has several museums, including the Navajo Cloud Talkers Museum.  The Navajo Cloud Talkers were the people during WWII who used the Navajo language to send and received coded messages.  (The Germans were never able to break the code!)  We wanted to go there, but arrived too late due to the time difference, and then we left too early in the morning.

From Tuba City, we headed to Camp Verde, but encountered several interesting sites along the way.  First, we were able to see more of the giant "steps" in the landscape, where the Colorado Plateau ends at the Vermilion Cliffs and drops down to a lower elevation plateau.

 

We were still on Highway 89A, heading to Highway 89 which would connect to the interstates heading south to Phoenix and then Tucson.  Highway 89A crosses the Colorado River east of the Grand Canyon, at the historic Navajo Bridge.  Just west of that bridge, we encountered one of the more puzzling sites we've ever seen.

This site was called "The Cliff Dwellers," and we expected traditional Native American dwellings carved into the stone cliffs or caves.  These weren't like that, these were individual little dwellings built around and under huge boulders that formed part of the little houses!  Really rather odd, but quite ingenious!

I wandered around, and then started to notice that some of these little buildings had some odd features that I hadn't seen in the several cliff dwellings I've visited.  First, the stone walls were formed of squared off blocks of stone, but not plastered over in adobe.  Then, the windows and doors had wood planks framing them.  And there was an actual chimney, rather than a small opening for smoke to go out of the dwelling.  Also, the buildings were square - and while I've seen some squared off dwellings built by indigenous people, with half the building a giant boulder, it would make more sense to make a rounded building around that huge rock.  The one with the chimney really looked much more like a little pioneer house in the desert!

There were several women selling jewelry and other souvenirs, so I asked if they knew anything about who used to live here, who built these homes.  No, no one had any idea.  We eventually drove on, and stopped at a shop near the bridge - I asked again, and the man at the store had no idea either.

Well, these became my burning questions - who lived here??  Who built these odd little buildings?

 

So of course, once we were in a place with wifi, I had to do some research.  What I found was a fascinating story of random chance, survival, and improvisation!

 

Back in 1927, a vaudeville dancer named Blanche Russell and her husband Bill packed up there belongings and drove to Arizona.  Bill had contracted tuberculosis, and they thought the warm dry climate of the southwest would help his medical condition.

 

Well, as Bill and Blanche drove through this section of Arizona, a bit west of the old Navajo Bridge, their car broke down.  There was no nearby town or service, and they were unable to repair whatever was wrong with the car.  So they decided to just camp out for the night.  

 

Blanche and Bill decided they liked this little spot, and they were able to build a little house up against one of the rocks.  Over the years, they continued to build and eventually established a successful trading post, complete with a restaurant and gas station!

The two stayed here for ten years or so before selling the business and moving on.  As the business expanded, it moved down the road a bit - but the original buildings remained, and these are the structures we saw on our visit.

I didn't do the original research - for more information, check out these two websites:  https://thatadventurelife.com/2021/08/18/cliff-dwellers-an-interesting-roadside-attraction-in-marble-canyon-az/  and  https://wanderwisdom.com/travelogue/Arizonas-Cliff-Dwellers-Lodge-And-Its-Unusual-Origin.

Cool story, isn't it?  Almost better than Native Americans choosing to build square buildings on lower ground rather than up in the cliffs.

Our last stop before arriving at our rental house in Tucson was Camp Verde.  There's a hotel and casino there, as well as tradition (and old!) cliff dwellings.

I wrote about the Cliff Castle, as it's called by the Yavapai-Apache Nation, who own both the hotel and casino.  The property of the actual Cliff Castle, the cliff dwelling, is now US National Park Service land, even though it's on the Yavapai-Apache Nation land.  We stayed at the hotel and I visited the actual castle in 2019 (named Montezuma's Castle by the settlers during the western expansion period).  Here's that blog:  https://rollingluggagers.blogspot.com/2019/01/

And here's the national park's website:  https://www.nps.gov/moca/index.htm

I had fun using my new camera at the Cliff Castle - the photos are much sharper, and I can zoom in and then do a super zoom for really close up photos, even when standing 1000 feet below the building.  So yes, more photos of this amazing feat of indigenous architecture!

 

For those who don't want to go back to my older blog, here's a summary of the info about the Cliff Castle, according to an info sign at the site:

 

"Between approximately 1100 and 1400, the Castle neighborhood also included a larger pueblo and numerous small alcove homes in the cliff face along Beaver Creek.

 

"Nestled in a limestone cliff overlooking the creek, Montezuma's Castle could have housed about 35 people.  Including families in nearby pueblos and rock shelters, perhaps 150 to 200 people made up this community.  

 

"In turn, these people belonged to a network of villagers united by kinship, agriculture, and cultural traditions that stretched dozens of miles along the Verde River and its tributaries, including Beaver Creek, from the Mongollon Rim to the Black Hills.  Archaeologists call this the Southern Sinagua culture area.

 

"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."

Several Native American nations trace their ancestors to this community, so the castle is still important in these cultures.  However, the Native Americans believed that abandoned dwellings, built of natural materials, should be allowed to return to the earth through natural decomposing.  Those of us of European descent prefer to keep and maintain such dwellings as part of our combined history and heritage.  While I can see and understand both viewpoints, but I will admit that as someone who wanted to be an archaeologist when I was a child, I really do appreciate that such sites are preserved and maintained so we can still visit them.

There has been some question about what was planted by early Native American communities, and the explanation of the agricultural practices is really interesting:

"For many Native American communities, three seeds - corn, beans, and squash - represent the most important crops.  When planted together, the Three Sisters work together to help one another thrive and survive.  Utilizing the corn, beans, and squash together in your garden draws upon centuries of Native American agricultural traditions and expertise.

"The crops of corn, beans, and squash are known as the Three Sisters.  For centuries these three crops have been the center of Native American agriculture and culinary traditions.  It is for good reason as these three crops complement each other in the garden as well as nutritionally.

"Corn provides the tall stalks for the beans to climb so that they are not out-competed by sprawling squash vines.  Beans provide nitrogen to fertilize the soil while also stabilizing the tall corn during heavy winds.  Beans are nitrogen-fixers, meaning they host rhizobia on their roots that can take nitrogen, a much needed plant nutrient, from the air and convert it into forms that can be absorbed by plant roots.  The large leaves of squash plants shade the ground which helps retain soil moisture and prevent weeds."

In some of the lower portions of the castle, there were large flat stones with an indented section.  I wondered during the previous visit if these were some kind of stone used for grinding food such as corn or nuts - the base of a grinding system.  Turns out I was right - a ranger confirmed that these are grinding stones, called metate, a mealing stone.  A large round or oval stone would be used to grind the grains/nuts on the metate.

It amazes me that these items still sit there today!

Okay, more photos, the close ups and the super close ups where you can see the rocks and adobe used to build the castle.  Plus the map of our route through Arizona, with each color denoting a different day of travel.

I hope to get in another blog next week to catch everyone up on our exciting life in Arizona.  Not that it's that exciting, we are still doing a lot of isolating and trying to stay safe - but we still manage to get out and do things, as well as celebrate the holidays.  It is that time of year.