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A little leisure

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

Last week was crazy here. We spent many hours getting ready for the big open house at the farm. It went great and we had a tremendous turnout, but boy were we tired at the end of it all. (We made something like 50 pizzas, 3 trays of lasagna, salads, bread, 20 or so pies, and cheesecakes.)

We also had our first overnight visitor at the guest house. It was great to have Brad’s mom here, and we put her to work! (I’m a little worried that we are going to get a reputation for working our guests to exhaustion. :)

After all that, we finally made a trip to Gila Cliff Dwellings. Over the past five years or so, we have made several attempts to go there but for a variety of reasons, none have come to fruition.

This park is only about 2 hours from our house, and it is fabulous! We’ve visited several other cliff dwellings, but have seen none like this where they let you actually go into the dwellings themselves. It was great. (The hike to the dwellings is a short one mile round trip.)

These structures were built by the Mongollon people who lived in the area in the late 1200s AD. They apparently only occupied the dwellings for one generation. No one knows exactly why they came or left.  There are six separate caves with 46 rooms.

The area surrounding the park is beautiful country, and we look forward to going camping there in the future.

Link to full size slide show

A surreal adventure

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

Before starting on our final stucco coat on Sunday, we had planned to take a rare day off and go explore a place we’ve been wanting to go. Rucker Canyon is about 10 miles south of us, and like most of the canyons that run to the west, it ends up in the Chiricahua Mountains, transitioning through many botanical zones along the way.

We left the house a little before 9. It was sunny, but cool and breezy after rain yesterday. (We are getting nearly nightly rain now during the monsoons. It’s wonderful.)

After driving a ways into the canyon, we stopped at Camp Rucker (later known as Fort Rucker, an outpost for fighting the Indians), an old Army supply camp from the late 1800s. It has several old adobe structures and corrals. As we walked to one end of the encampment, we found a huge wide open pasture. It was sunny with big white puffy clouds, and we decided to hike to the other end.

About half way back, it started to rain. Quickly, the pleasant light rain turned to big wet drops. We rapidly got soaked to the skin and sought shelter under one of the big oak trees. Lightning and loud claps of thunder ensued. (Brad mentioned that being under a tree is not the recommended course of action in this situation.) We stood there for a while, and when the rain let up a bit, we headed back to the truck.

The rain let up, and we explored an old ranch house. Then on the way back to the truck, the sky opened up again.

By the time, we got to the truck, we were really soaked through, but rain here is always a joyous event, so we were happy.

We drove down the canyon for a while, and the rain got heavier. It rained and rained and rained. Rivers were forming on the sides and sometimes across the gravel road. I was a little worried, but Brad always tells me our truck is good in this kind of driving.

This is from the truck, crossing a stream flowing through the road.

This is from the truck, crossing a stream flowing through the road.

Then it started to hail. Really, I swear, 3/8″ diameter hailstones in 80 plus degree weather. So bizarre.

We drove for a while and around noon had our picnic lunch (in the truck). Eventually, it cleared off so we could enjoy the spectacular mountain views.

It really was a magnificent day. We look forward to more exploration and camping and hiking in this area.