Liked these two signs in the historic main street of Cottonwood, on our way to nearby Tuzigoot National Monument. Small town-ishly quaint.
The city on a hill - pretty impressive even in this state. At its high water mark, 8,000 - 12,000 inhabitants lived here and in the immediate environs of the Verde Valley.
Once again, our trusty Park Pass got us in free.
Fashion changed overnight from gaudy yellow back to more somber attire.
On a map, this area shows as being inhabitated by the Southern Sinagua people, with Ancestral Puebloans living in a much larger geographical expanse to the north. Then, one bit of signage in the museum stated that there had never been a people named "Sinagua", unlike the Hopi, Navaho, Apache, etc. Rather it is more a lifestyle description. The thing to take away from this is that a thimble's worth of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Pam and I know "nothing" even after all we have visited and seen on this trip. Even the pros are not sure about many things but they come to that state from a place of knowledge. So, if any reader wants to know what's going on rely less on our scribblings and more the Encyclopedia Britannica on-line edition. But for that one observation we read, we would been talking on about the Sinagua people this and the Sinagua people that. Plus the fact that with periodic migrations, wide ranging trade routes and intermingling of cultures the attempt to scientifically pigeonhole people, their cultures and geographical locations in neat parcels doesn't necessarily account for blurred lines.
There's those convenient boundaries for those who like certainty.
Those old travel posters ooze charm - when cars were automobiles and road speeds of 75 mph were the stuff of futurist fiction.
Wonderful artifacts unearthed during Tuzigoot excavations. Because roofs collapsed in time their rubble served to preserve that which lay beneath for hundreds of years until archeologists arrived.
Hiking up to the remnants of hilltop Tuzigoot, built between 1000-1400 and then gradually abandoned as the more mobile inhabitants packed up and moved northward. Hopi oral history says that Tuzigoot was never an end place, but merely a way station in a cycle of journeying to the north. Pam's "Jawbone" step counting, computerized bracelet linked wirelessly to her Iphone is just the type of device which illustrates how far we have progressed from these ancient people, who had no idea of of their biologically beneficial step count as migrated over what were to them vast distances.
Inside what resides on the top of the hill.
What a view, then and now.
An obliging couple took this and we offered to reciprocate. They declined, pointing out their high tech, miniaturized photographic doodads that made our Iphone seem more of a Kodak Brownie. One minute you're state-of-the-art, the next you're pounding maize with a rock.
Pam, back at the car, holding her nose at having to actually touch the exterior of the filthy Fit! Norm promised a car wash in Phoenix is within the budget.
We took the road more traveled, to Sedona.
Puffy clouds and beautiful colors in the rocks around us. It started sprinkling as soon as we pulled out of Tuzigoot but quit soon after - all hail the magic of rainbows! Once again, we were lucky not to be caught in the wet stuff while walking about the site.
Pam getting her fix for the day. This Starbucks was so new that it was not in the GPS. We were heading for another one mapped being two miles further on when Pam whacked Norm on the shoulder and shrieked "we just passed one!!!" Needless to say, her demotion from Navigator 2nd Class down to Cigarette Girl was brutally swift.
What a sight, making your weekly trip to the grocery store in Sedona.
Leave it to the Trumps to sniff out every chapel, church and cathedral, even if it's hidden in the rocks.
Well, this certainly a sight to give you religion, or at least aspirations.
This is most definitely not the wee chapel in the glen.
Norm chose to take the proffered free golf cart ride up the hill from the lot where the car was parked. Thinking of adding more steps to her magic step-count bracelet, Pam slogged on up alone. Considering the venue, more credit toward absolution would have been earned had she instead crawled up on her hands and bare knees.
The golf cart went no further.
The next two photos are just a portion of the vistas that socked us beyween the eyes from the patio in front of the church's front entrance. Obviously, the counterpoint of the severely angular chapel against the vast expanses of stunning cliffs all around was pretty goosebumpling, a word invented for the occasion.
This chapel has pedigree to spare.
Norm quite pleased to find that Pam's knees are safe and sound.
Regardless of your persuasion, walking through the front door into this interior awakens something that is, in the ordinary day to day of things, deep down dormant.
Looking down from the chapel patio was this Sedona starter home. The name on the mailbox read "Shiek Abdullah" something or other. Mammon abased at the foot of the cross. More imagery comes to mind but enough for now.
Driving from the chapel back into Sedona central and our next destination - see following photos.
Available for a few bucks to energize any front yard - plus, these kids are totally quiet.
A moose of some bellows in offended irritation at the sight of the dirty Fit, considers pooping on it thinking poop might improve the appearance.
When Howard Carter first peered into King Tut's tomb he was asked by the person behind, "Can you see anything?", to which he replied "Yes, wonderful things". Inside this gallery, when he was asked if he needed assistance, Norm responded, "Yes, where's the head?" After completing necessaries, he stepped forth to be amazed at the wonderful things he saw.
Seriously, this gallery has first caliber eye candy. And looking is free. Blessedly, every single item inside and out had a price tag so there was no need to tentatively ask a sales representative the cost of something only to mumble, upon being informed of the price, that it would be too small (or large) for your Vail chalet.
Sacrilege be it to say, but these sleek, modern interpretations of genuine, weathered petroglyphs, in Technicolor no less, weren't half bad. In a few thousand years they might just have a modicum of cachet.
Pow! This one hits the eye right in the kisser.
We figured that Hillary might have this installed in the White House foyer to celebrate becoming the First Woman.
We saw artist Bill Worrell's work in a Santa Fe gallery, but on a much smaller scale. Here is the largest collection of his works for sale anywhere. These totems make you want to sacrifice a something to appease being topped off by an antlered deer head.
He even makes jewelry...
...and tapestries . This camera doesn't do this tapestry justice - very vibrant colors
83,000 clams - this shanan is even huger than the one outside the Santa Fe gallery.
A walk around the outside of the gallery.
Kid you not, the skies opened up on the drive back to Cottonwood. So long as we are in the car it can rain and rain and rain. But the weather for tomorrow until we return home looks to be water free - we shall see.
Tomorrow we spend the entire day rooting around Sedona proper, after an early morning detour to Montezuma's Castle.
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