Down into the Valley of the Sun

Catching up to date...  its now Friday May 18th and today we traveled from Flagstaff, south to the Phoenix Metro area to position ourselves to pick up Kates bro Paul tomorrow at Sky Harbor Airport.

Since it was only a 2 1/2 hr drive to get here, we had more time to explore the area

up by Flagstaff prior to heading south.

First was a warm sunrise in the camp.

Then a drive thru the cinder fields

The colors from the eruptions are everywhere.

What is amazing about this part of the country is how life seems to take hold

No matter how difficult the conditions.

We then headed over to the nearby Wapatki National Mounumet.

This is a collection of ruins from the indigenous peoples who populated this

area about a thousand years ago.

Similar to the many ruins that can be found throughout the southwest, these were

part of a larger civilization that covered this whole part of the country.

Their ability to not only survive in these conditions but to thrive in

harmony with the land is a testament to

what could be the best in us.

 

The desert is really a colorful place.

After touring the ruins for a while I did get a bad scare.

Many of these ruins are rooms that are excavated, and the drops are 6' - 10' or more.

Kate was walking along, not paying attention to where she was going

 and tripped on the edge of one drop.  

She staggered for a second... 

and realized that she was going off of the edge so

she jumped rather than fall head first over the side.

I was about 15' behind her and could do nothing but watch...  

thinking she was going head first

over the side.  

Luckily she landed on her feet.  It was a good 8' drop 

so she could have been hurt bad...

 or worse.

I had to reach down and help Kate climb out of her pit.

I was so relieved that she was ok that I didn't think to get a picture

of her down in there.

Kate says an indian spirit pushed her.

No....  I didn't do it!

Anyway - that was at the end of our visit there so we headed back to camp to get 

hooked up to the coach and back on the road to Phoenix.

That leads me to tonights (and tomorrows) home.

We are at Cave Creek Campground, 

part of the Maricopa County Arizona county park system. 

 It is a desert campground in the valley of the sun 

about 30 miles northeast of Phoenix.

Had we gotten here sooner in the season we would have been able to enjoy

the desert flowers, but if you look close you can still find a few.

The view from our window.

It's a really nice park and there are only a couple of other

coaches here so we have the place almost to ourselves.

Tomorrow we drive into Phoenix to pick up Paul, spend the night here,

then head back up into the mountains east of here for a few days

on Fool Hollow Lake in Show Low Arizona.

See you there!