Runnin into ruins.....

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We took a short drive yesterday - well what was supposed to a short drive that turned into an all day road trip. We went straight across hwy 89A from our site to another dirt road and found sights we never expected. There are all sorts of remains of indian homes at the base of the red rocks. The "host" of one of the sights said that a guy named Willard homesteaded the land in the area and when his wife died, he moved up into these hills to a place some Hopi guides had taken him - at 65 years old. He lived in this cave for 3 years while he was building his ranch house (which is now the rangers station). He planted all sorts of fruit trees and had quite a garden there and ended up living there until he was about 85. There were cave paintings (petroglyphs) all over the walls which we heard spanned over a thousand years and many different tribes. It was pretty interesting stuff. Things you only see on TV. We drove past vast fields of these little pale wild flowers in between areas and saw trees growing on small ledges of the shear rock walls. It was really amazing to see. You probably all know that song by Leanne Womak - I hope you dance? The lyricks say "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean". Well, I gotta say that if that doesn't work, just stand in the shadow of one of these rock mountains and see how you feel! Tremendous! Along the route we took, we found a whole bunch of trailheads and we are hoping to get in some good hiking tomorrow - if not it will be within the next week that we will get out there. We are going to try to do as many as we can before we head out. We plan to stay here until the end of this week and then head up to Curlew. We will get settled in which will take a couple of days and then we had west to see family and pick up stuff from storage. Mostly tools so we can get something started to move all the rest of the stuff to. And my car of course. At any rate, enjoy the pictures - we're going to head out this morning for a hike so I have to get started. Take care everyone and see you soon!

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Photos

Palatki
There were ruins in these walls.

Willard's cave
This is were Willard lived while he built his ranchhouse. you can see the black marks on the ceiling from his fires

The door side
This is the door to the cave. That whole wall is a rock face.

trees in the wall
You can see the trees on the right, and they grow behind that pillar over to the other side.

Wildflowers
This is a closer view of the fields of wildflowers we saw.

Fields
This shows just a smidgen of the huge fields, but I think you get the idea.

Ruins
These walls were built under an overhang in the rock walls. It kept the rain off and it stayed cool in the summer.

Shear rock breakage
You see the rock at the bottom with the verticle stiping? That is part of what came off of the face of that wall behind it. Amazing.

More ruins
These structures used the rocks as walls and floors. They have survived a lot of years!

Building in rocks
I told the guide - Another great argument for building your life on The Rock!