Yesterday (Friday) we drove from Holbrook to Cottonwood, AZ, via Flagstaff (which is still under a blanket of snow from the storms of a week ago). We arrived at the Rio Verde RV Park early in the afternoon and had a chance to walk around the park property. We weren't too sure what to expect - people who have reviewed the park on-line have used descriptors like "quirky" and "it is what it is." One reviewer claimed that people either love it or hate it - we haven't decided which group we are affiliated with yet. There are big glamorous snow-bird rigs ($300,000+) parked next to 30 year old run down full-timer trailers (with piles of stuff stacked outside). There don't seem to be any rules - and maybe that is what some people love and some hate. There is a nice area of the RV park overlooking the river but it is more expensive and there is no wifi there - so we are in the cheaper area with wifi but no view of the river.

During our explorations yesterday we hiked up to one of the two "Indian ruins" on the property (since we hadn't planned ahead, we didn't have a camera so no photos for the time being). It is on a butte overlooking the river and pottery sherds and stone flakes are scattered everywhere (but no obvious pueblo structure). Since there are no "rules" in the RV park we actually collected a representative sample of pottery and Rick spent an hour or so this morning reading some technical reports and was able to classify them. We have Tuzigoot Red Ware, Verde Brown Ware, and Prescott Grey Ware all dating between A.D. 1125 and 1400. From the butte we looked down upon the other "Indian ruin" which appears to be a small four or five room pueblo. We will hike there sometime in our stay here and report on what we see (and get some pictures).

Today we visited Tuzigoot National Monument. It is a large 77 room one-story pueblo constructed on top of a linear butte overlooking the Verde River Valley (and all the farmland they were using to grow crops).

The people who built it are now referred to as the Sinagua Culture and are different people with different traditions than the folks who built the sites we visited around Albuquerque. Most noticeable is the size of the rooms - these rooms are huge compared to Pecos, Salinas, Bandelier, etc., and they apparently didn't use subterranean kivas for their religious/political/commercial activities.

Based on the pottery we classified, the site on the RV park property and Tuzigoot date to the same time period and are only about five miles apart.

From Tuzigoot we could see the town of Jerome across the Verde River Valley high up on the opposite mountain side so we took the short drive up there.

Jerome is where Chris's must-visit winery is located - check out the Caduceus Winery website (click on the book after the raven delivers it)! Jerome was absolutely packed with tourists with no visitor parking spots left - it appears to be a real tourist magnet. We decided to come back on a weekday and hopefully the town won't be so overwhelmingly busy.

We haven't decided what we will do tomorrow, but the choices are almost endless. Maybe some prehistoric cliff dwellings - or maybe not. The joys of retirement!