Our move north from the Phoenix area seems to have been a success. Daytime highs here are in the low 70s.
We are near Sedona, at roughly 3,500 feet:
It turns out that we had overnighted next to a watering hole. In the morning, the cows came down to drink:
Afterwards, they spread out and resumed their usual bovine duties:
Since dispersed camping regulations don’t allow us to park within a quarter mile of a livestock water source, we hitched up and said goodbye to our erstwhile neighbors:
We stopped at the Motezuma Well unit of Montezuma Castle National Monument. The “well” is a 15 million gallon spring. The water, seeping up from below, eventually created the massive sinkhole we see today:
Ancient Native American cliff dwellings line the rim:
We hiked down to where 1.5 million gallons of water exit the well each day through a tunnel under the wall of the sinkhole:
A turn of the century photographer wrote his name on the rock above an ancient Indian dwelling:
Another view of the cliff dwellings:
Remnants of a pueblo built above the spring’s rim:
Outside the sinkhole, the water from the spring reappears from the natural tunnel under the sinkhole wall. Native Americans built a canal over a thousand years ago to use this water to irrigate their fields. A creek flows to the left of the canal:
Near the spring, remnants of a pit house have been discovered, thought to have been built around the year 1050:
Continuing west, we visited Montezuma Castle National Monument, whose primary feature is a cliff dwelling thought to have housed about 30 people until the early 1400s:
The kids received their Junior Ranger badges:
Continuing west and north, we found a nice dispersed camping location near Cottonwood, Arizona. B picked some flowers for the Shabbos table:
We’re looking forward to cooler weather here. Good Shabbos from near Cottonwood, Arizona!
Facebook
Instagram
Email