We arrived yesterday at our new campsite for the week. It is a lovely, clean, well-maintained park called Zane Grey RV Park. We have been so lucky with our choices of parks. This park is in the Verde Valley between Flagstaff and Phoenix. The Verde River is one of the last free-flowing rivers in Arizona and is at 3300 ft elevation. It's warmer than Flagstaff, but cooler than Phoenix.
In keeping with our love of ancient people and their history, we went to Montezuma Castle National Monument and Montezuma Well today. The castle is part of some ancient cliff dwellings dating back to 1150 and stands only 100 ft above the valley. It is one of the most well-preserved cliff dwellings in the country. It was an easy 1/2 mile walk and had some very interesting historical dioramas to view and stories to hear about this place and the ancient inhabitants.
Montezuma Well is part of the same monument but is located about 11 miles north. It is a natural limestone sinkhole. More than a million gallons of water flow through it from an underground spring, creating an oasis in the desert. The ranger told us that it has a unique closed ecosystem with some plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. It has something to do with increased CO2 and lack of oxygen. I didn't understand all of it. Anyway, we walked down into the hole and could see the cliff dwellings just under the rim. The ancient people who lived there actually dug six miles of irrigation ditches to water their crops from this "well". Another interesting daytrip.
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