Sedona Day 4

Today we went to Montezuma’s Castle. Its a misnomer, though, because it was never Aztec as the first settlers assumed. Instead it was from the Sinagua Indians. They were cliff dwellers and built into the side of a limestone cliff.

These cliffs had a totally different texture than the red rocks or canyons in Sedona.

The signs were all a little annoying because they asked more questions than provided information. I guess its because there really is very little information available…we don’t know who the Sinagua were, why they built into the cliff, what they really did, why they left, or where they went.

The structure is awesome! Its actually very high up in the cliff, which left us wondering how they got up there, and how they carried stuff up.

All of us in front of Montezuma’s Castle.

Although Montezuma’s Castle is a larger ruin, Castle A was originally a larger structure. Its ruins were closer to ground level, and we could walk up to to them and see some of the walls and stuff up close.

A picture of Castle A:

Both of the ruins in relation to eachother:

After Montezuma’s Castle we went to Jerome. Jerome is supposedly the largest ghost town in America, but in reality there were a ton of people there. Its an old mining town that was once the 4th largest city in America. When the copper mines closed in 1950 the population dropped from over 15,000 to around 50. That’s when it became known as a ghost town. Today around 500 people live there. Most of the buildings are the original buildings from when it was a bit city. We were expecting an abandoned, empty town, but there were a ton of tourists and open shops and stuff.

The above may look like a random picture, but there’s a great tid bit that goes along with it. All the roads to Jerome were narrow and largely unguarded, and Mom kept flipping out, thinking we were too close to the edge. This is one of the edges she thought we got too close to. it looks really scary, but when you get close you realize its not a straight drop but more of a short steep slope followed by some gradual slopes.

V and Mom didn’t want to get out of the car, so they had Dad pull up to the signs so they could read them from the comfort of their seats.

At this distance Jerome looked interesting. Up close it was quite underwhelming.

This is the only really abandoned building we got to look at up close.

Notice the random toilet in the middle of the space.

The history of the abandoned building/ruin.

This picture has a great story behind it. V wanted icecream, and Dad swore he saw a Ben and Jerry’s. So all four of us trekked up this big hill only to find it was actually Paul & Jerry’s Saloon. V was so disappointed, especially when he realized it was a modern day bar.

After Jerome, I wasn’t feeling well, so we came back to the hotel to rest. Turns out I have heat exhaustion and sunburn. Good times. I’m off to bed now, so I can be ready for the grand canyon tomorrow. More soon!

Sedona Day 3

After our exciting adventures through the wind and sand on day 2, we decided to stay near Sedona on day 3. We took the morning a little easy to give V and me both some time to get some work done, and then we went on a jeep off road tour of the red rocks. Many of the pictures are crooked because they were taken while bouncing around the back of the jeep. Our driver was a guy named Rusty, and I wish I had a picture of him. He was a real cowboy. He wore leather chaps over his jeans, a bandana, collared shirt with a rugged jacket, and of course cowboy boots and a hat. He also had one of those pull yourself up by the bootstraps life stories. He was born in Alaska and lived in a tiny log cabin with his parents where he did things like dig a 40’ well. At the age of 11 he ran away and lived with the Native Americans up there. They put him to work immediately in their fish selling productions. Eventually later in life he drove a truck around the 48 states, was an electrician, managed people’s ranches, and now he’s a “prospector” which really means treasure hunter. He’s retired three times but hates it so he drives these jeep tours and maintains all of the jeeps for the company that he works for. he was very knowledgeable about the history, flora and fauna of the area. Also, somewhere along the way he managed to get married and have 11 kids. A couple years ago his wife left him, and he has since remarried. Very exciting life story. Anyhoo, on to the pictures…

Vikram, Mom, and Dad on the Jeep. So far the ride has been fun but not too crazy. We were still on paved roads.

And we’re off the road! Still though, this part of the dirt road wasn’t too bad. There were a few bounces here and there, but there wasn’t enough to really upset anyone…yet.

The Indians used the outer bark of this tree to make mats and baskets.

Yucca plant, the fibers of which are also useful for weaving, and parts of it can be eaten.

Green Agave, near its death it sprouts this tall stalk that can grow at a rate of up to 3 inches/day. Also at this time it condenses all of its sweetness into its bulbous base. Agave is naturally very sweet, about 22% sweeter than sugar, and its a lot better for you than sugar.

Prickly pear cactus…useful for a lot of things. The center is what is used as food, in lotions, soaps, jellies, etc. Apparently its lightly sweet, but nowhere near as sweet as agave.

We went down this huge hill over a bunch of rocks. Luckily all of us were wearing our seatbelts. Had we not been, we would have heat the roof many times, if not fallen out.

Mom’s reactions were the best! We always knew we were about to go over some really awesome, rough terrain when Mom said “DON’T LOOK!” (The rational being that if you don’t look you can tell your mind that the road isn’t really that bad.)

The road was really really rough. V and I thought the ride was awesome!

We got down at this point to take some pictures. Dad was so excited to get to the edge of the lookout for a good picture that he didn’t notice he was running across loose rocks. He fell really hard and got hurt fairly badly. It put him out of commission for the afternoon, but he healed well overnight.

This is picture Dad was so anxious to take.

The view we had was AMAZING. I know I keep saying that, but seriously these “red rocks” make you believe in god; they’re that awe-inspiring.

We couldn’t take any more pictures because the ride got too rough for me to feel comfortable holding the camera in my hand. After the tour, we dropped dad off at the hotel to rest and went in search of lunch. You’d think that wouldn’t be so hard in the afternoon in a tourist town, but we went to three restaurants, all of which were closed. One of them was even a Quizno’s, which was supposed to be open according to the hours listed on the door. Eventually we found food and came back to the hotel to rest a bit with dad. In the late afternoon, Mom, V and I went on a drive through southwest Sedona. The houses we saw there were really awesome. There are no pictures of that, though, because I was driving.

Sedona Day 2

Day 2 was really quite exciting. We saw canyons that still had lingering snow. Driving from Sedona to the elevated desert region took us along poorly protected narrow roads and had Mom sitting on the edge of her seat. She decided that the canyons and mountains of Sedona were not that different from the ghats in India (especially with regards to the road quality).

This is what happens to people at the scenic overlook that we stopped at.

 

Mom and Dad with the canyons in the background. Here you can sort of see what we were just beginning to notice: the day was REALLY windy. At this point the wind wasn’t too bad or anything, but as the day progressed the wind became more of an issue.

 

We took the above picture for our Mauritian family members. Unless you know Dad’s side you wont get this, but read on anyway. The name of the National Forest is Kokonino! Really! Although I’m pretty certain it wasn’t named in anticipation of my Dad’s visit, its cute none the less.

Our first real stop of the day was Meteor Crater. This picture was taken from the safety of the museum window. Due to the lack of vegetation (this being the desert and all) you can’t tell from this picture but it was ridiculously windy outside. Not just kind of breezy like in March in Richmond, here they clocked winds at 87 mph.

This is a picture of all of us at the bottom of the crater. Actually I’m lying. Its a fake we took inside the museum. Notice our hair and expressions, and compare them to the next image.

We had such a hard time making it out to the look out point. And you can’t tell from this picture, but the lookout point dangled a fairly high distance above the crater. Normally the height wouldn’t scare me, but when the wooden floor boards you’re standing on are being deformed to a degree that is clearly visible to the naked eye, the height becomes a bit of a concern. Walking back to the museum there was a huge gust of wind so strong that the four of us had to huddle up to make sure none of us flew off.

Even though the wind was really bad at Meteor Crater, we continued with our day, fairly optimistic. I mean, back home things like this die down fairly quickly. Somehow we forgot to take into consideration the fact that in the desert there’s nothing to slow down the wind. Anyway, as we were driving to our next stop we saw this train, and I got to thinking. In all the old westerns you watch you see cowboys robbing trains on horseback. Well I think if they can manage to rob a train in these conditions then they deserve to keep whatever is on it.

Guess what else we didn’t think about? Strong winds + desert = sand storm. Conditions got so bad on I-40 on our way to the Petrified Forest that we could barely see the truck in front of us.

Part of I-40 was part of the original Route 66. Although this motel is from those days, V and I were both tempted to stay there a night. I mean who can pass up an opportunity to stay in a wigwam?

The Petfried Forest is truly something you’ll never see anywhere else. The wood itself wasn’t that interesting to me. I mean it was cool and had some cool colors, and the story of how it was made was interesting and all. Its just that in comparison to the massive landscape the wood wasn’t much.

Mom and Dad didn’t feel like braving the wind to see the Agate Bridge, so only V and I went. Turns out the bridge is a 600 year old structure, not the random building that Dad pointed out, which was actually a modern day restroom.

 

One of my favorite places was Newspaper Rock. V was afraid that if we stopped here we wouldn’t be able to leave until Dad had finished reading the “newspaper”. From the lookout point it just looked like a bunch of rocks. But when you looked a little closer…

These are some of the oldest, and most famous, petroglyphs in Arizona. Here on these rocks you can see references to Kokopelli (I’ll tell you about him later).

From the Petrified Forest we made our way to the Painted Desert. Pictures don’t do justice to the true hue of the color visible. And here, again, the striking thing was the landscape. The feeling you get in Arizona when you stand among the mountains (or rocks) cannot be conveyed in a picture. You have to come out here one day and just feel small. I can’t explain it well, but its amazing.

The rest of Day 2 we have no photographic evidence of. On the way back to Sedona, part of I-40 was closed due to the sand storm and raging winds. The winds were so bad that when Dad got out of the car to get directions for a detour, our car shook violently from the wind, even with three of us still inside to weight it down. Eventually we decided to just get dinner at a Pizza Hut that happened to be at the exit. When we hit the road again a couple hours later the highway had opened up again, and we were able to make it back OK.