Homolovi State Park

Before we left Kartchner Caverns, we visited The Amerind, an American Indian Museum, gallery and history center. There are the most amazing places in the middle of no where. This is in the town of Dragoon, AZ but right off I10. They have a very large collection of pottery, baskets and incredible Navajo and native jewelry. No photos allowed. Super cool place.

Amerind Museum

On Monday (March 6) we departed Kartchner Caverns and southern Arizona. I am considering this the start of the second part of our trip.  It was an almost 400 mile drive north and east to Homolovi State Park. We drove through Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff to get here. That's a long day for us as we have been keeping it to a couple of hours or so and this took about 6 hours. We got on the road just after 8 and arrived at the campground around 4, including stops for gas and such. 384 miles, average 15mpg which is pretty amazing considering the altitude climbs. We had the choice or a twisty mountain route, or the safer but longer interstate route, which we chose. 

Snowy Flagstaff highway

The drive the the mountains around Flagstaff was very pretty - and up to 7,000 feet. Lots of snow up there. Then descended back to about 4,500 where we are now. 

Humphries Peak, San Francisco Mtns, highest in AZ

 

 

 

 

 

We are quite close to the town of Winslow, AZ, made famous in the Jackson Browne song Take it Easy. There's a Standing on the Corner Foundation which has created a little park and tourist spot where you can have a photo opp..and plenty of old white people taking advantage of it. Pretty fun. And funny. This is right on old RT 66 and there's some nice remnants of that architecture.

yes both of us

 

 

 

 

Flatbed Ford

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a restored hotel here called La Posada - much original to the site and very nicely done. Interesting history if you care to read it.

La Posada

 

 

 

 

 

Interior

Ex-ballroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homolovi (pronounced Home-O-lovey) is Hopi for "Place of the Little Hills" and it is still considered sacred ground to the Hope. There are two Anasazi pueblo ruins at the park, and they are covered in pot shards everywhere you look. You can feel the ancient-ness of the place, and in the pottery pieces themselves. These sites have been heavily looted over the years both by pot thieves and by Mormon settlers who used the stones for their dwellings . There are also some petroglyphs in the area.

 

Potshards

ancient mortar

ancient wall

lot of potshard, many colors and patterns

 

 

Restored Kiva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

colors and patterns

 

 

Petroglyph

Petroglyph

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There's not a whole lot to do here, and this desert wind that has hundreds of miles to pick up speed is driving us kind of batty so we are leaving on Saturday a day early, instead of Sunday, and heading to Rimrock, AZ to spend the week with my niece Sharon Smith and her wonderful hubby Kyle. This is about 30 minutes south of Sedona and there is much to do in the area - birding and hiking and other stuff too. 

It's really great to have places we can stay besides campgrounds. Really nice to be able to break the camping up with friends.  

Full moon rising

 

Sun setting behind Winslow

 

Stats: $251 for 6 nights so $41/night. Water is turned off for the winter, too! So that is a bit steep. Bathrooms are sort of heated, but do have hot water. Did not try the showers. Not my favorite place as campgrounds go. Off to do laundry tomorrow. Yee haa.

Kartchner Caverns State Park

 I have a bit of catching up to do!

First, thanks to all of you who responded to my links question. Enough of you do click through that I will keep them. Thanks!

Before we departed from Beth, Aaron and Sierra Vista on Monday, we went to Coronado National Memorial - named for the explorer who passed through the area in the mid-1500's while looking for the famed golden cities. Of course he did not find them and caused a lot of death and destruction. 

There's an unimproved cave on the Memorial, which we hiked up to but did not go into. Then went up a really rough road to the top of the peak. Rather than going back down that way, we went around another way - much longer but an adventure nevertheless. 

Cave into

Cave mouth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Sunday, we attended one of the weekly performances at the Arizona Folklore Preserve. If I lived here I would go to these every week!  There are shows 44 weekends a year, they only stop in July and August. It is a partnership with Arizona State University, and it mostly staffed by volunteers. Super cool place. This is Randy Huston, who put on an excellent, interesting and funny performance.

 

On Monday, we packed up and departed Sierra Vista for Kartchner Caverns State Park. This state park is only about 35 miles from Sierra Vista, so not a far trip for us. There is indeed a cavern on the property, with an interesting history. Two young geology students were exploring a local sink hole in the mid 1970's and spelunked into this cavern. They kept it a secret for a couple of years, exploring it on their own. They then let the landowners know about it, and brought them into the cavern as well. The family kept it secret for another 10 years! Finally, the family (not surprisingly named Kartchner) sold the cavern to the state, and the State Park was established. It took another 5 years or so to make the cave accessible to the public, with a visitor center, entrance-ways and walking paths. 

Anemone blooming on the trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kartchner hills

Little alpine ferns

Mountain Bluebird all over, Almost indigo

 

 

 

 

 

This is a "live cave" meaning it is still forming, still has water running through it. There is also a Common Cave Bat colony who uses this cave as their nursery, so the cave closes for tours from mid-April to mid-Oct for bat-rearing season. They are very careful about not bringing in white nose fungus, which is affecting a lot of bat populations across the country You cannot bring in anything with you - no phone, no bags, nothing. No photos or video allowed either, so no pics. Tour guides are volunteers, and ours was terrific. Very interesting to learn the history and about how they are conserving the bat colony and surrounding area.

There's also several miles of hiking trails up and around the hills and draws. We took a seven mile hike one day, along Guindani wash, which we crossed many times on the trail. Really nice to be walking along a draw that actually has water in it!

 

On Wednesday night into Thursday, we had a snow storm. Yup! About 2" and down to 25°. In Sierra Vista, Ft. Huachuca was closed, as were schools. There is no snow clearing equipment at all here so just have to wait until it melts, which it did pretty quickly. This was the morning we had our cave tour. The cave is a steady 70° and 90% humidity so it was a big change from outdoors!

1 1/2-2"

Can't quite see the hills

 

 

 

 

 

 

By afternoon it was all gone

Apparently this is one of the coolest winters on record for southern AZ. Figures, we leave NY where it is a warm winter to come here. Oh well - we are still enjoying ourselves!

If you are ever near Benson, AZ, eat at Mi Casa! Tiny place with maybe 10 tables but great food for a great price and really amazing desserts. Yum!

Friday we took a drive to the Cochise Stronghold, in the Dragoon mountains, where Cochise led his band in winter and where he was able to hide out from Mexican and US soldiers for a while until he and his band were captured. It is a beautiful location with live oak, pinion and spruce trees, and a running stream, quite full from the recent snows.

We have a two more days here and then we move north of Phoenix to
Homolovi State Park and Hopi Territory. We are really hoping it will not be much colder than we are here but we shall see. 

Stats for Kartchner Caverns - 7 nights with water and electric is $233, so $33 a night. That's a lot for a state park. They do not give a discount for the Golden Age pass. Good bathrooms, sort of heated, nice hot shower. Nicely laid out park.

 

How people camp

I think it is pretty interesting to see how and what people camp in. We usually see at least one other Casita wherever we are, and sometimes there are 3 or 4. Yes, you have your 40+ foot bus sized RVs, and your big fifth wheels, and a lot of the sprinter type van campers.

But what is interesting to me are the home made and car top camping that is gaining in use. I saw a pretty interesting Subaru car top tent, but neglected to get a photo.

Here are some examples we have seen in our travels...we are starting our third month on the road today!

A-Liner with pop outs; travels flat like a pop-up.

 

 

Mercedes off road beast

Check out the "deck" on this one.

 

Home made job

 

 

One person in this one

One person in this one - tall guy. Where does he sleep?

Very fancy & expensive Airstream

Pick up camping

Car top camping - like that ladder?

Front view

Hope up you have enjoyed my little tour of camping facilities. 😎

The things people have to have with them??