Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
Saturday - 21 October 2000 | Tempe, Arizona:
We left Yuma late in the morning, and had to immediately pull-off I-8
because our awning was coming out AGAIN while we were driving down the freeway!
(Insert expletive here.) This is the second time in a year we've had to deal
with this - luckily, this time we knew what "that noise" meant and were able to
bungee it down before doing real damage. It has been repaired once, and it will
be repaired again when we arrive home. Not a good way to begin the day... but
better than the overturned triple-trailer we saw further down the freeway later
in the afternoon. (Insert quiet prayer here.)
Interstate 8 is a most uninspiring drive. The terrain is flat desert, with a
few sagebrush. Ridges of sharply jagged mountain peaks thrust out of the sand
and disappear into the landscape as we pass by. The mountains have interesting
names: Mohawk, Copper, Castle Dome, Palomars, Gila and Sierra Pinta Mountains.
After the little town of Aztec, saguaro cactus began to appear. We drove through
the nice little town of Casa Grande and headed north to Phoenix on Highway 10,
stopping at the
Casa
Grande Ruins National Monument in Coolidge.
Casa Grande Ruins
Casa Grande (Great House), pictured above, was built by the
Hohokam people around AD 1300. It was four-stories tall and is now
topped by a protective cover to stop further deterioration. The
Hohokam were hunter-gathers, and built an extensive network of
irrigation canals from the Gila River to many settlements in the area,
controlling the water in the valley. Incredible! There was a large city
surrounding this ruin, with many houses and communal buildings, including a
ball court.
 This
photo (left) shows an interior angle and the photo below shows the cutout on
the west wall, which aligns with the setting sun during the summer solstice.
Other openings also align with the sun and moon at specific times. The
Hohokam were great traders also, as Casa Grande stood along
natural routes between present-day California, the Great Plains, the
Colorado Plateau and northern Mexico. In 1892, Casa Grande became America's
first-ever archeological preserve.
 The
sky was turning black, rain was hitting the windscreen and we needed to
drive one more hour before arriving in the Phoenix area. By four o'clock it
was so stormy, we had to switch from our sunglasses and we arrived in Tempe
to a thunder, lightning and rainstorm. The proprietors were quite excited
about getting rain and thanked us for bringing it from Oregon. We will be
here for 8 nights, golfing, playing and will attend the Oregon-ASU game next
Saturday before taking a week to get back to Beaverton. We have a nice site
in a nice city-style RV Park.
Threatening skies over Casa Grande
RV Park:
Apache Palms RV Park in Tempe, Arizona
Site #14. 50-amp, full-service site
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