History and Reserch

Thursday was history and research day. We plan to return to Casa Grande Ruins next winter and in our tours we talk about Padre Francisco Kino and Juan Batista de Anza. Just a little north and east of where we are staying we visited the Tubac Presidio where Anza was captain and the San Cayetano de Tumacacori, one of the missions established by Kino.

Tubac has been maintained as an Arizona State Historic Park, the state’s first state park. Unfortunately, it is one of a number of state parks that have lost their funding due to the current budget crisis in the state. Fortunately, local supports have raised the funds to keep the park open with volunteers.

It is a wonderful historic site. Tubac was a Spanish fort (presidio) established in 1752 after a Pima Indian revolt to control the Pimas and protect the frontier from the Apaches and Seris. It was maintained till 1821, under Spanish then Mexican control. Anza was the second captain there. His greatest claim to fame was leading a group of settlers to California where they established the town of San Francisco. On the way there, he visited Casa Grande Ruins and priests with the expedition recorded information about the ruins.

Only these few adobe bricks remain of the original Presidio.



However, archaeologists who excavated the site in 1974 returned and prepared an underground archaeological display of portions of the original foundation, walls, and plaza floor.



A group of displays shows how cooking, leather work and carpentry shops might have looked during the years of Spanish control.



This park was so informative. We wanted to go on to visit Tumacacori, which is only a couple of miles down the road, even though our brains were already full of information. We didn’t spend much time at the National Historical Park, but it was interesting to see a model of the original church area



and the ruins of the church.





It was established in 1691 by Fr. Kino, a Jesuit priest from Spain who came to New Spain (Mexico) in 1887. He also established missions as far north as present-day Tucson. In 1694, 1697 and 1699 he visited Casa Grande Ruins and when he wrote about that first visit in his diary, he was the first European to leave a written record of the ruins.

We will have to return to Tumacacori to learn more. But it was a very interesting day. Along the way we enjoyed looking at the shops in the town of Tubac, which has boutiques and numerous artist galleries. It is a fun little town, but it would be hard to add one of these metal sculptures to what we carry in our RV basement.

What a Week!

Happy Easter everyone.

We were sooo busy last week. Our son Eric flew down to visit us for two days of his spring break.



On Monday we drove to St. Anthony Greek Orthodox Monastery. It is such a beautiful place, and so peaceful, even though this is Holy Week and there were many pilgrims and other visitors. Eric took what seemed like a million pictures.We took quite a few, but not as many as he did because we had visited last year. Here is a link to the blog I posted then.

On Tuesday we drove to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, one of the Arizona State Parks. As I have shown in several blogs, the desert is very green this spring because of all the rain we have received. Now the wild flowers are blooming along the highways and many of the plants and trees at the Arboretum were in bloom.

Aren’t these poppies great?



The lupine are also blooming.



The pink flowers remind us of the fireweed we saw in Alaska, though we don’t know if it is really the same flower.



I took lots of pictures at the arboretum, but I didn’t write down the names of any of the plants. So here are some of those I took. Click on the photo and you will see the whole album.

Spring flowers

We worked an extra shift at Casa Grande Ruins Wednesday morning to help with 56 children from the Santa Rosa School on the Tohono O'Odham who are in kindergarten through second grade. We don’t have a lot of experience teaching grade school students, but we had lots of help leading the children through the Junior Ranger activities.



And we had a good time. These three girls took turns wearing John's hat.



On Thursday we were hit by a tsunami of junior high students, probably 250.



Between those students and other visitors, the Ruins had a total of 7 tours. It was quite an experience…the most difficult day we’ve ever experienced as volunteers.

We have finished our three-month volunteer assignment. In a couple of days we will be off to be tourists for nine months. I’ll share lots of interesting sights as we travel along.

A Busy Week

We didn't take many pictures this week, but that doesn't mean weren't busy. On Monday three friends came up from Tucson. Dick and Nina have been friends since we lived in Granby, Colorado, in the late 1980s. Sharon was John's parish administrator at St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church in Cherry Hills Village. Dick and Nina later moved to the Denver area, where they became good friends with Sharon. Dick and Nina now live in Tucson and Sharon came down to enjoy watching the Colorado Rockies at Spring Training.

We spent some time in the VIP campground, sitting in the shade of a mesquite tree and creosote bush. After we gave them a short version of our Casa Grande Ruins, we drove to Florence for dinner at the LB Inn. We talked and laughed for a long time in this busy restaurant. As we left, we asked the hostess to take a picture of all of us out front.



Wednesday we helped 32 4th-, 5th- and 6th-grade students from Santa Rosa School on the Tohono O'Odham reservation learn about the Ruins. Working with school children isn't our strongest suit, but this was a really good group of pupils and we enjoyed working with them. Here is a picture of some of the 4th graders as they toured the museum.



On Thursday Dave and Alice came to visit. John has been friends with Dave since grade school. Dave met Alice when the girl John was dating in college introduced her good friend to Dave. They spend their winters in Gold Canyon here and it was good to spend time talking and going to Tag's here in Coolidge for lunch. It was a great visit, especially since we haven't spent time with them for many years. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures that day.

Today John con-celebrated mass at St. Michael's Episcopal Church here in Coolidge. We have been attending there since we arrived in January, but we have only been able to become involved when our work schedule changed and we have Sundays off. Our life-style doesn't lend itself to John serving in a local congregation, so it has been a real blessing to get to know the people here and for John to be able to function at the altar.

We have just one more week here, then we can begin to scratch our hitchitch and travel on down the road.

W.A.C.C. Tour

Last Friday we went on the most interesting tour. We were among 19 Casa Grande Ruins volunteers who took a field trip to the Western Archaeological and Conservation Center in Tucson. That is where the National Park Service stores and preserves museum items for NPS facilities in all of the western states.

First we toured the archives. Khaleel explained what kinds of items they keep. Friday they were scanning items from the Little Bighorn National Monument in Montana. It was interesting to us because we spent two months near there last summer. They showed us a muster list for the 7th Cavalry, which had been commanded by General George A. Custer. I know you can't really read it, but this is the actual document, written over 100 years ago.



They also had several photographs. Here you can see General Custer and his staff.



Aren't we a good looking group? Most of us were taking pictures, either with small digital cameras or high-tech cell phones.



After the Archives, we visited the two conservation laboratories. Here is Dana talking about an old basket they were restoring.



Audrey was working on pieces of cotton textile that are over 1,000 years old. Imagine a piece of cloth lasting that long! She takes the small pieces and puts them in high humidity for a while to relax the fibers. Then she can mount them so they can be stored and examined safely.



This is a pot being reassembled. On the table behind it you can see the map that was drawn to show how the pieces should be put together.



I think I was most fascinated or impressed with this item. Yucca fibers were twisted or spun into a cord and then turkey feathers were wrapped around the cord. Eventually the weaving became a blanket--not unlike a modern down-filled coat.



We only have a small museum here at the Ruins and I have often wondered what other artifacts were found here when the place was excavated. We sure don't have much on display. We learned that they have a lot of items from Casa Grande at W.A.C.C. There they have the facilities to safely store them. This is a pottery bowl decorated with red birds.



Kim is the registrar at W.A.C.C. That means she is in charge of keeping track of everything there. She gave our group a tour of the artifact storage area. Here she is explaining this huge basket that was made to store grain.



This is a turquoise-encrusted item. In my tours I tell people the Sonoran Desert dwellers traded with others to obtain items not available here, including turquoise. It was exciting to see what they did with that turquoise.



We were able to see many of the Hohokam artifacts that are kept at the Tucson center. They also have many items from other cultures and more recent times. This is one of many pieces of furniture that was made by the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) in the Southwest.

Lunch with Friends

Thursday we met our friends Marcia and Bob at BeDillon's Restaurant in Casa Grande, a city about 20 miles from where we are staying in Coolidge. Marcia and Bob are spending the winter in Gold Canyon, a community east of Phoenix. We got to know them when we all were attending the Church of the Transfiguration in Evergreen, Colorado. They still live in that community. From Christmas letters we knew all of us were spending the winter in Arizona. It was so good to spend some time with them.



BeDillon's is located in an old house off the beaten path in Casa Grande. They serve Mexican themed dishes like Mexican lasagna and fish tacos, as well as American standards like French dip sandwiches. We enjoyed our meal, and even more the three hours we spent talking.

The restaurant has a patio and cactus garden. It is wonderful.



Even more amazing is a small museum. Really, I think someone cleaned out the barn by putting items in old display cases where the public could see them.

These gourds hang at the entrance to the museum.



These are very old stone tools, including arrow straighteners.




Is this an espresso machine made of copper?



Aren't these baskets and small items woven of horse hair pretty?



These are hand-made carpenter's tools. John's grandfather made his own tools and they looked like these.



Someone collected campaign buttons. The only ones I recognized were from the 1960 presidential campaign between Barry Goldwater (of Arizona) and John F. Kennedy.



These are identified as Hohokam game balls. We know they played ballgames in the Hohokam villages, so that may be a correct description.



We are so glad Marcia and Bob introduced us to this delightful place.

Soothing Sounds

One part staying here at Casa Grande Ruins that I really enjoy is the soothing sounds of the Mourning Doves and Great-Horned Owls. A large number of these doves live here at the Ruins.



Before dawn each morning I can hear them cooing to each other. Again in the evening. They may do the same mid-day, but I don't notice them because of other sounds. They build nests in the forks of trees and in the rafters of the maintenance compound parking area. Last year one pair built their nest in our 5th-wheel hitch. The eggs had hatched just before we left here and we had to take the nest out of the hitch and move it to a nearby tree. I wonder if the babies survived?

Another soothing sound comes from the Great-Horned Owls that live in the roof over the Great House.



late in the afternoon, I hear them saying "whoo, whoo, whoo." It is a really peaceful sound.

During the hours the monument is open, we have Native American flute music playing. That music reminds me of the doves and owls.

This may be a week we want to forget. Sunday John started to come down with a cold. He felt bad enough by Monday that he stayed home Monday and Tuesday. I went in and led tours those two days. But by the end of the day yesterday, I was feeling kind of bad. Today I plan to rest all day and see if I can fight off that same cold.

High-tech Gadgets

This was a day for high-tech gadgets. After a breakfast/staff meeting at 9 am (it is our day off, but I cooked an egg dish and we attended, anyway), we took off on our bikes to do some geocaching. In case you don’t know what that is, let me explain. People all over the world hide small containers—from hide-a-key boxes up to ammo cans—and post the coordinates for the hide on the www.geocaching.com web site. Then people who have a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite device) hunt for the hidden item, sign the log they find there, then go to the web site and log the fact they found it. Many hidden containers have numerous small items for people to take or trade.

Last night John wrote down the coordinates for several caches near Casa Grande National Monument. Today we went hunting and found two hidden containers.





We also responded to a virtual cache. That is when you find the cache by answering questions about the site or sending in a photo of something. National Park facilities don’t like people hiding things there because of possible damage to the property when cachers come hunting. But virtual caches encourage people to visit historic and natural sites and learn about them.

We enjoy geocaching because it takes us into places in the area we are visiting that we might not have seen otherwise. Over the years we have logged 89 caches found. That is nothing compared to some people, who have found thousands.

We have had our GPS since about 2004, before our trip to Alaska that year. John felt newer devices offer more than our old one. So yesterday he ordered a new Garmin Oregon 400T from Amazon.com. After we returned from our bike trip we received a phone call from John at the Visitor Center front desk, announcing a package from FedEx. Can you imagine? It came in less than 24 hours.

And are we impressed! It has maps and many other bells and whistles. It will take us a while to learn how to use it. We can even download waypoints for geocaches, if we wish.

In addition to ordering the GPS yesterday, I ordered a 1-terabyte external hard drive to back up our photos and my computer, which is now nearly five years old. It is only a matter of time before we need to replace that. What would we do without our high-tech gadgets and on-line shopping?

Spring Is Here!

The calendar and people in most areas of this country might not agree, but Spring is here. How do I know? It is getting into the 70s every afternoon. All of us living in the VIP compound here at Casa Grande are sitting outside, getting together to talk or share a glass of wine. This is the weather we come to Arizona in January and February and March to enjoy. And it has finally arrived.

Also, the Mourning Doves are courting, the Great Horned Owls that live in the roof over the Great House are tending eggs in their nest, and the Round-Tailed Ground Squirrels have come out of their burrows and are running around everywhere. This last evidence of Spring isn't something to celebrate. Sometimes they build nests under the hoods of trucks, cars and RVs, or just feed on the wiring they find there. All of us living here have one or more strings of Christmas lights glowing under our RVs at night. I don't know if that works or not. We haven't had any trouble with the critters either last year or this. Last year we didn't have the lights--just borax and moth balls. This year we have the lights. So do both kinds of cure work or don't we need either? We don't know.

Saturday we had two visitors. Fellow Montana 5th-wheel owners, David and Jo-Anna Kikel, stopped by. We first met them at Klamath, California. They were on their way to Alaska and we were headed to Oregon. They volunteer at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where we visited them last year. Saturday we gave them a quick tour of Casa Grande, then visited for a while.



We have been quite social recently. Last week we drove to Surprise, on the northwest corner of Phoenix, to have lunch with Bill and Ellie Pendleton. We talked so long at the restaurant, I'm sure they were about to kick us out. It was a very good visit.

This weekt we have had some real competition while giving tours of the monument. An archaeological construction crew--I guess that is what you would call them--are correcting the drainage pattern in the southern half of the compound where we give tours. As you look at the equipment they are using, you can see why it is a real test. But the visitors here are good sports about it and very interested in what they are doing. Note the heavy equipment on the left and the tour group next to the Great House at the right.

Were We Ever Surprised!

For three months we are Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in the town of Coolidge, Arizona, a town of a little more than 7,000 people. As we drive south and west of town, we pass the Wurtz Farm, which sells hay and gourds.



So, when we read they were holding a gourd festival at the Pinal County Fairgrounds about 10 miles from Coolidge, we decided to check it out. We didn't know what to expect, but we certainly saw much more than we had anticipated.

We entered the exhibition area of the fairgrounds under this neat sign.



We saw lots of cute festival decorations made out of gourds.







And huge baskets filled with about every shape of gourd imaginable.



Lots of people were lined up to view a juried show of decorated gourds. We didn't bother standing in the line.



We were amazed at the number of people attending the festival. In addition to the crowds of lookers and shoppers, there were vendors from all over the country.



There was a booth to teach about gourds.



Vendors selling the tools needed to work on gourds and lots of useful books for sale.







Gourds can be painted, carved, laced and decorated in so many ways I can't even describe them. At times, if I hadn't known we were at a gourd show, I would have thought I was looking at pottery. We took so many pictures, I made several into a movie, so you can appreciate the beauty and fun of what can be done with the humble gourd.

Gourd Festival