The great thing about playing it loose with your travel plans is that you have all the flexibility in the world to adjust your schedule to spend more or less time at places that interest you more or less than you expected. The downside is when you find out that doing the really cool things in those places required you to make a reservation. Six months ago. … More Laura’s Journal: Grand Canyon – Going Down
There are cliff dwellings, and then there are entire canyons full of cliff dwellings. Walnut Canyon is stunningly beautiful as a natural phenomenon. It’s very easy to see why people would want to live here, but less easy to imagine fighting the challenges of the cliffs in order to construct a home. Before descending the very gracious stairs to do the walking tour, even tourists are warned: … More Laura’s Journal: Walnut Canyon National Monument
If Tuzigoot was today’s equivalent of last week’s visit to Wupatki, Montezuma castle parallels last week’s visit to the cliff dwellings at Tonto NM. In this case, we couldn’t enter the buildings, only admire them from the footpath below, but they are very admirable. … More Laura’s Journal: Montezuma Castle National Monument
Wednesday, April 28, 2021TUZIGOOT NATIONAL MONUMENT Tuzigoot (an anglicization of the Apache word for “crooked water” given to this Sinaguan site by a member of the excavation crew in the early 1900s) is a hilltop pueblo that bears many similarities to the pueblo at Wupatki. Whereas Wupatki was mainly a non-residential trading hub, Tuzigoot was … More Laura’s Journal: Tuzigoot National Monument
Yes, there are organ pipe cacti and they are very cool, and there are lots of saguaro and you know how I feel about those, but this park also has amazing geology, with volcanic mountains jutting up all over and about with crazy enthusiasm and color. You are all lucky I promised not to overload the blog with pictures of rocks, because that is my very strong impulse right now. I’ll try to keep them mostly contained to Instagram. The drive to get down here was quite long, so that are a bit into our exploring time, but we still got to spend more time here than in any of the other parks so far, and we made good use of it. … More Laura’s Journal: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
A few petroglyphs to admire: A few cactuses to admire: Laura among the cactuses: Transcription: Saturday, April 24, 2021 SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK I already waxed rhapsodic about saguaro, so let’s talk about getting lost in the desert at night! (Spoiler alert: “lost” is an overstatement.) We meant to spend the whole day in Saguaro NP. … More Laura’s Journal: Hiking in the Dark at Saguaro National Park
We’ve visited several historic pueblo sites now, and every of them has been impressive for how the architecture of stone and mud has held up over the centuries, but this one is the first we’ve visited made entirely of adobe, with no stone cores in the walls. I couldn’t stop staring. This incredible structure is three stories tall. The only wood in the whole structure is in the ceilings/floors between levels. A three story building made of hardened mud. Still standing after 700 years. By comparison, how’s the last mud pie you baked holding up? … More Laura’s Journal: Casa Grande National Monument
Thither & Yon 