July 2006

Today, we drove from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. We had wonderful weather and a great day at the rim. This is a picture of the Watchtower at Desert View scenic area. Notice the nest near the picture center — we saw many hawks in the canyon and this may be one of their nests. The American Flag on the right is in front of the ranger station there.

The Indian Watchtower is at the eastern end of the south rim of the Grand Canyon. From a distance the building’s silhouette looks like the Anasazi watchtower it was meant to mimic. In actual size the tower is considerably larger than any known Anasazi tower. In plan the structure is composed of one enormous circle at the north, a small circle at the south, an gently arced forms connecting the two. The largest circle and the arced portions are the sections of that building that are just one story in height. The smaller circular plan is for the tower itself, more than five stories high. The building sits out on a promontory overlooking the Grand Canyon.

Today, we started out in Payson, Arizona and drove to more Native American ruins — Montezuma’s Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments.

This is a shot of Montezuma’s Castle near Camp Verde, Arizona. Two things though — it’s not a castle and Montezuma was never there.

“Casa Grande” is the Hohokam Native American ruins located near Coolidge, Arizona. The Hohokams had an interesting civilization. They farmed and irrigated crops using complex engineering skills. The four walls of this house are aligned with the four points of the compass. There is a feature where holes in the walls projected light onto a particular place on the wall to indicate equinoxes and solstices. Sort of like Stonehenge, I suppose. After our visit we headed to the Arizona High country. More on that tomorrow.