April 28, 2016 Cottonwood-Sedona, Arizona

70’s, mostly cloudy and threatening rain most of the day.

The view of the dispersed camping area from my bike ride this am. This one is smaller and more crowded than the others we have been to.  We visited Montezuma’s Castle National Monument. This is the cliff dwelling part of it.  You can’t go in it, just view it from the bottom.

They have this nice diorama of it so you can see what the inside looks like. The diorama was made in 1951 when they closed it walking through.  There were many other stuctures around it, this is part of what is left of what they call Castle A, which was much bigger.

Next we visited Montazuma’s well National Monument, near by. It is a huge sink hole with a spring. Very unusual for the desert. In the top left corner you can see a couple cliff dwellings above it. There was a large pueblo that was on the edge of the well. The well marks the point of origin several Native groups in the area. Oral tradition tell of the spirit of the great water serpent that still lives there. The Yavapai call this “Ah-hah Bavilwaja”-water monster.

Yucca, blooming cactus, pink flower and scarlet guara. The indians built these canals from the outlet of  the well for up to 7 miles to irrigate their crops.

Mountain mahogony flower, golden columbine, maiden hair fern near the outlet of the well and a mallow seed head. Out side the monument the Indains have  the Cliff Castle Casino.

On the way back we stopped at the Verde Brewing Company. This is the empty glass of Out on Bail IPA that John had. I tasted the Honey Pot Stout.  When we got back to camp the storm was hanging out over the mountains to the north of us, kind of where Jerome is.

We went to V-Bar-V ranch heritage site to view petroglyphs. This chiminy is all that is left of the ranch house there.  There are a few rocks here with over 1000 petroglyphs. They aligned the rocks at the top so that the sun shined of different glyphs at different times of the year, equinox’s, solstices etc. Helped them know when to plant etc.

This is a closer up of part of the panel and another section.

Purple nightshades, salsify and daisies. After the petroglyphs we hike Bell Trail. John on the trail

This petroglyph is supposed to be a cougar on an elks back. One of the unique ones to this site. Shart the trail Arizona style, larkspur and a pink flower. We had lunch by this lovely pool.

Spiderwort, blue water flower, another interesting petroglyph and a cactus flower. Another view of our lunch spot.

Hiking back out. We went to Sedona next. I went to college in Flagstaff some time over 40 years ago most of this area was just out in the country. We could take off hiking anywhere and camp anywhere. Now it is all fancy city. It is still a lovely area, but sooooo different to me.

Our destination in Sedona was the Oak Creek Brewery. Here is John with his Snake Charmer IPA. I think this is the fanciest brewery I have been to yet. Another shot of Sedona where I was used to seeing country.

Sunset at camp. There is a rainbow to the far left of this photo. The clouds are from a rainstorm that just past before sunset.