2018 Trip 4: Arizona: May 25

Phoenix, AZ. Friday May 25

Breakfast at the Guest House Inn at Ajo AZ to start the day off right

Ajo is now but a memory, a stronger one when I discovered this morning that a Minnesota designed the town in 1914. Lodging at Guest House Inn was great, Michael was a gracious host. Breakfast was delicious and the bed gave me a great night’s sleep. The B & B had been the location where visiting dignitaries to the copper mine stayed when the mine was still operational. (By the way, RW if you are reading this, I hope you saw our email and responded to Michael.)

As we drove out of town, we stopped at the offices of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. Cabeza is the third largest refuge in the lower 48 states and is primarily desert and mountain. But as the introductory video states, desert does not equal barren of life.

One needs a wilderness permit to enter the refuge which we obtained but we could have skipped it. Once again, high clearance vehicles are “suggested”. We tried the first mile or so of road but decided once again to be cautious and avoid the potential for damaging the bottom of the rental vehicle. Some time we will have to visit and make sure we have a true high clearance vehicle and go wild on back road trips. We passed another wilderness area, Sonoran Desert National Monument on the way back to Phoenix and just kept driving.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Coolidge AZ

Phoenix was our eventual destination to pick up Deb and Rebecca who will join us for the next eight days. Their flight does not land until late in the evening so we dropped in at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. This is a NPS unit that Chris and I had disagreed whether we had been here before. I said yes, Chris said no. Once we arrived, we realized Chris was right.

The area around Phoenix was home to people now called the “Ancestral People” who probably arrived around 300 C.E. Over the next thousand years various changes took place, including the change from smaller settlements to larger ones. Casa Grande is the largest known of those large settlements, home to about 2,000 people. Casa Grande is named due to the still-standing four-story Great House.

By the time European explorers arrived in the area, the Ancestral People had dispersed. While not known for certain, best theories believe a combination of weather related conditions caused a societal breakdown and the people dispersed. Six Native American tribes claim ancestry to the Ancestral People.

Map of irrigation canals top; bottom remnant of canal by Casa Grande

We do know that the Ancestral People created a system of canals, close to 220 miles worth, to be able to irrigate crops with water from the Gila River. Without steel implements, this would have been a major task for the community to create. Highly skilled craft remains have been found, indicating the communities had time for more than just work.

Casa Grande up close

Casa Grande was constructed in layers of local building material called caliche, a desert sand high in calcium carbonate mixed with water to form a concrete like substance. The building is oriented north and south with astronomical openings that line up to record the spring and fall equinoxes and the summer solstice.

Casa Grande Ruins was declared the nation’s first archaeological preserve in 1892 and a national monument in 1918. From the picture, you can observe a shelter over the ruins to protect them from the elements. The shelter is called a “Ramada”, or open air shelter, was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and constructed in 1932.

The wispy residue of a dust devil

While walking around the site, we experienced a short but nasty wind storm, with the wind creating the type of dust devil I wrote about a few days ago. This time, we had to close our eyes and turn away from the wind; by the time it died down enough for me to get my camera out, I was only able to snap the few wisps of dirt in the air above us.

The rest of the day was spent driving back to Phoenix, checking in to the hotel and having dinner. We picked up Deb and Rebecca at the airport. As usual for us, we did a test run to the airport and spotting the best location to meet them. Of course, the test run was done flawlessly with few cars or people around. Pick-up time at 9:30 PM was jammed though. But we found them.

Saturday we will head to Flagstaff for the second half of this trip, visiting Lou and Joyce, and taking Deb and Rebecca to the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, etc.

Ed and Chris. May 26