October 8th – October 14th 2012
Most of the week, we were just dealing with a practical
life. J. worked her three days and then spent other three days seeing doctors.
Yearly physical, dentist, document for her next job … really boring.
Reading.
Writing. Car wash. Groceries. SNOW (made me really sad). Post office. Laundry.
House. … normal life … I saw two cars with Michigan
plates and briefly spoke to a guy at the post office, who was from Eastpointe, Michigan.
Sunday morning, around 8 o’clock, we left home and were
heading south on freeway 17. It was relatively cold (mornings got pretty chilly
in here). Otherwise, the sky was pretty blue and according to forecast, it was
supposed to be warm around Camp
Verde.
Our first stop was Montezuma Well (part of Montezuma Castle
National Monument). It
was about 5 miles from freeway (on paved road), there was four cars, including
one with Michigan
plates. Later, I talked to those people (briefly) and learned, that they lived
in Virginia for couple years and just recently
moved to Arizona
(and intend to stay here). It was small hike uphill towards the natural lake
(well). Really impressive view, some hills and semi desert around and then you
see big hole and lake on the bottom.
We walked around (it was pretty small site), walked down to
the well and were really impress by it. There were some ruins in the well’s
walls and as well next to the well. We had to pass two couples, but otherwise
it was quiet and peaceful.
There were some information boards around the site so we as
well learned something new. The water is apparently constantly feeding the well
(with the same temperature) and then it disappears into the swallet. Then it
takes about 150 feet and water appears next to Beaver Creek. Native people
built the canal (small one) and used water for irrigation. You could not see
where water was disappearing or appearing (I looked).
I forgot …. wild life:
It was very interesting site. The weather changed (compared
to Flagstaff), it
was warm and sunny. There were few clouds, but they were just nice background
for picture taking. We obviously saw some cactus as well (it is Arizona). To see really
lively green next to the creek was more then interesting. From the top of the
well, we could see green string winding through the valley. There were as well
quite a few sycamore trees (big ones) with strangely textured bark.
Less then 15 minutes drive to Montezuma Castle.
I was saying, that it might be less interesting then Montezuma Well. There was
a lot of cars and even some tour buses. (Too many people for out liking.) We
looked briefly at visitor’s center and then walked on the paved path towards
the Castle. We saw a lot of rock and pretty steep cliffs. I could not see any
castle (most of the ruins we seen so far were on the hill). And … there was
cavern high in the cliff and there was “the castle”. Amazing. And the small
valley had small creek and a lot of trees, so we could see why would someone
live here.
And … I was right, the site of Montezuma Well was nicer.
When we left the Castle, we were driving towards town of Camp Verde. I forgot to mention, that next to
the freeway exist for the Castle, was Cliff house casino. I found it sad
(casino, smoke shops or similar sites with Indians motives). There was classic
car show, some old tractors and roller derby girls showing off in the parking
lot. Otherwise, Camp
Verde was pretty boring.
We passed through in no time. J. wanted to go back to some specialty stores, so
we turned around and parked. The store was closed, so we ended up in nearby
junk store.
Driving another 40 miles in pretty country and we were in
small town of Strawberry.
J. was almost sleeping so she did not take picture of strawberry and the name
of the town. Shame on her. There were some houses, vacation houses, the lodge
and restaurant … and pretty much nothing else. We drove towards the historical
site (old log school).
Surprisingly it was a
lot of going up and down. At the end, we descended into Tonto State Park.
After very long time we had to pay entrance fee and drove onto big parking lot.
There was a lot of picnic tables and other places just to hang out. It looked
pretty flat with hills surrounding the valley. Again, I could not see where the
site would be. It was small walk to the first viewpoint. There we realized that
we were actually standing on this huge travertine bridge. We did not see that
coming. We then took a path leading on the bottom of the bridge.
Unfortunately, there were many people and it was somewhat
noisy. It was still incredible view. The small creek was going through the
bridge and creating lively green valley. From the top ridge of the bridge was
falling small stream of water creating millions of drops and refreshing people
walking inside of the bridge. We were climbing the rock and following the path.
We could not believe what we saw. It was incredibly beautiful. We learned that
we cold walk through and continue next to the creek to the other end of the
trail.
Climbing over rocks, jumping over the creek and going up and
down … that was the trail. It was awesome. Less people would be nice, but it
was not that bad. Then there was mossy waterfall, which was not accessible from
our trail. But we took a risk and climb in the water (not a lot of water) to
end up on the waterfall viewpoint.
It made our hike shorter and we did not have to walk to the
fall and back. And it was pretty refreshing. In no time we were back in the
parking lot. Short walk back to the car and we were done. Just before that, we
read this sign with some statistics.
And … we were back on the road. We got gasoline in Pine
(slightly bigger town next to Strawberry) and then just drove. It was over an
hour of pretty nice drive before we stopped at Mormon village. We saw Mormon
lodge (we thought it was nice and classy resort), which was not interesting.
The Mormon Lake is volatile (the depth is about 10
feet) and quite often is almost completely dry. Nice views of San
Francisco peaks.
Flagstaff.
We stopped by restaurant/brewery Lumberyard to have late lunch. Average.
Well, at least if is nice to see a lot of light at the end
of tunnel.
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