November 5, 2015

When we walk trails in the park I can see Tuzigoot National Monument in the distance.

Its hard to recognize in the picture, but over to the right you can see a light color almost like stair steps. That’s Tuzigoot.

Time to see it close up. There is a $10 fee here, covered by the Senior Pass. Yay.

“Tuzigoot” is a mispronunciation of an Apache word meaning “crooked water”, given by the people who worked on restoring these remains. When it was discovered it was a crumbling mass, so what we see here now has mostly been rebuilt.

This was an apartment type building, and it was the village, with 87 ground floor rooms. Most rooms didn’t have doors. Entry was by ladders through openings in the roof. It was built between 1000 and 1400, increasing in size over those years as the population grew. It is thought that when they began building the population was about 50, and 400 years later it had grown to about 200. The valley below was the farming area, and the Verde River runs nearby.
So they lived there about 400 years…nothing to sneeze at, when you consider the U. S. is less than 250 years old.

By the way, dogs are allowed on this trail!!

After Tuzigoot, we traveled 5 miles further to visit the tiny town of Jerome, an old copper mining community built just about straight up a mountain. When the copper was depleted, the people left too, and it was a ghost town until the 60’s when the Hippies came in and made it into an artist community.

It’s getting very rainy so back we go to Cottonwood to do some chores. There’s a nice laundromat beside the Safeway. While doing the wash I learn from the TV that Flagstaff got 5 inches of snow yesterday and last night…right after I left. It’s a mess, and the schools are closed. Whew! So glad I didn’t try to stay the 4 nights I had originally planned there.

After the wash is dried and folded, I head over a couple of blocks for my hair appointment.

Yikes! Now it’s too short. I’m not comfortable with this. Thank goodness for hats and hoods!