Saturday, July 6th, we decided to do one last tourist-type trip to Montezuma's Castle and Tuzigoot. Both are early indigenous peoples archeological sites only about an hour north of Phoenix. Montezuma's Castle is a cliff dwelling that can only be seen from below - no one allowed to climb up to get a closer view. It is just outside of Camp Verde.
About thirty minutes away, near Cottonwood, is Tuzigoot. All that is left of this community built on a hill are the stone foundations.
It was quite warm that day so we didn't linger very long at either place. We set our course home through Jerome and over Mingus Mountain into the Prescott Valley. Jerome is an old mining town built way up on the mountain with crazy narrow winding streets. It is quite the tourist attraction and, being a Saturday, it was rather crowded so we didn't stay long. The drive over Mingus mountain took us up into pines - very lovely and much cooler. Below is the view of Cottonwood and the Verde River valley from above Jerome.
Above is a photo of Steve and me - almost out the door of the Arizona Phoenix Mission
I think my favorite shot is that posed water bottle! HA!
ReplyDeleteVery cool pictures, though. Seriously, I couldn't help but think of how this connects us to the civilizations in the Book of Mormon.
(And now I really want to be able to see inside Montezuma's Castle. I'm really curious now as to what it looks like on the inside. Probably not remarkable, to be sure, but I suppose it's just the curious allure of the forbidden... :)