Day 585: Homeschooling Near Sedona

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Ben

Shabbos was pleasant here, with temperatures only reaching 80 or so. We went for a little walk and played Settlers of Catan in the afternoon.

Continuing their study of France in Geography Through Art, the kids today learned how to create medieval-era geometric stained glass windows:

The awning rail was detaching from the wall of the RV, so I applied Loctite to the screws and re-inserted them. I also added half a dozen new screws. Once the awning was not at risk of pulling away from the RV, I installed our new patio shade in the awning track to see what effect it would have on keeping the RV cool:

It’s been more confortable here than in the Phoenix area, with highs just reaching 80 in the afternoon. In the distance, the red rock of Sedona beckons:

B used a balloon in Science class to explore static electricity. B and M both blew up a balloon and wrote on them. The idea was that when the balloon was deflated, they would have tiny writing on the surface of the now-small balloon. M chose to write out the Star Spangled Banner:

The sunsets here aren’t half bad:

Day 583: Montezuma Castle National Monument

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Ben

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!

Day 582: Following the Weather

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Ben

This morning we packed up the RV and prepared to leave Ak-Chin airport. We were out of water, so we drove the 50 feet over to the dump station and filled our tanks. After everyone showered, we dumped our tanks. The slides were still out, so I had to go under the slide to pull the dump levers:

We said goodbye to Wayne and Suzie. I learned quite a bit from Wayne over the five days we were here, so I hate to leave, but daytime highs here are now in the 90s, and we have to be in Las Vegas for Passover in just a few weeks, so we drove north towards higher elevations and cooler temperatures.

Wayne had put me in touch with PPGer Scott, who lives near Sedona and suggested we camp where he launches his PPG. When we pulled in around sunset, we found that we had quite a bit of company:

We set up the RV while dodging piles of cow manure and fell asleep to the sounds of distant mooing. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.