Bye bye El Mirage, hello Casa Grande

Sun Jan 10 – Had a wonderful dinner tonight with Joyce’s Aunt Helen and cousins Robyn and Kirk. Robyn and Helen live in Flagstaff and drove down to Phoenix to celebrate Helen’s 87th birthday. Kirk flew in from California. You would never believe Helen is 87 years old. She still works as a Foster Grandparent in the Flagstaff schools. Kirk still plays in his rock band and has traveled as far away as Finland!  Robyn is the head honcho at the Meteor Crater near Winslow AZ. Check out the website she created at http://www.meteorcrater.com/. It’s awesome! If you haven’t been to the Meteor Crater, put it on your list.

Robyn, Auntie Helen and Kirk

Mon Jan 11 – Left the El Mirage and drove a short 76 miles to Palm Creek RV Resort in Casa Grande. Wow! This place is huge – almost 2,000 sites. Everyone is very friendly. Our neighbors on one side are from Saskatchewan. Lots of Canadians in this park. Rode our bikes around and found the pickle ball courts – right next to the tennis courts. We had never seen pickle ball played. It looks a little like ping pong played on a tennis court, but the court is smaller and they play with a wiffle ball and oversized ping pong paddles. Will have to try it. The woodshop is 3 times as big as the one in El Mirage. Jim is wishing we were staying longer.

Forgot to mention that the little lemon tree back in El Mirage had BIG thorns all over it. What’s up with that?

Thorny lemon??

Tues Jan 12 – Set out this morning for the Casa Grande Ruins about 20 miles away. Casa Grande (“Great House”) is 4 stories high and 60 feet wide. It is surrounded by the remains of an ancient Hohokam farming village. The walls of the Casa itself face the four cardinal points of the compass and openings in the walls align with the sun and moon at specific times of the year. The wooden beams for the house, which have all disintegrated now, came from up to 50 miles away. It is a mystery how they were brought here by a civilization with no horses or livestock of any kind. They built vast systems of irrigation canals and were excellent farmers.

Casa Grande

Four stories tall!

We are now in the land of the saguaro and prickly pear, and many other cactus (cacti?). Saguaros live 150 – 200 years under the right conditions. They grow very slowly, about an inch a year and can be 30 to 50 feet tall. Some never grow branches (or arms).

          

Baby Saguaro next to Joyce;

Big Daddy in background

                          OUCH!!

After seeing the ruins we decided to drive on over to Florence just so we could tell cousin Randy that we did. He winters there for a few months each year. Stopped at the Visitor Center, picked up a map of the town and found that not only is there a prison nearby, there is a Prison Outlet Store. Having never heard of such a thing we had to go there. Everything in the store is made by the prisoners and there are some pretty unique things. We came back with a couple of T-shirts which say, “Arizona State Prison, a gated community.”

For the folks back home who grumble about the 20 mph speed zones around schools, here in Casa Grande it’s 15 mph!