Category: Trips

The Palace Saloon

Prescott AZ

The Palace Restaurant and Saloon is both the oldest business and oldest bar operating in the state of Arizona, United States. Located on historic Whiskey Row in Prescott, the saloon was opened in 1877, and rebuilt in 1901 after a disastrous fire swept the district in 1900. During his time in Prescott before leaving for Tombstone, Wyatt Earp was involved in several gunfights behind the saloon, killing two men. Doc Holliday also killed a man in the saloon during a knife fight. Holliday’s common-law wife, Mary Katherine Horony-Cummings, better known as Big Nose Kate, had worked upstairs as a prostitute.
Among past patrons were Big Nose Kate, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp and Virgil Earp.
This guy is seriously the security at the saloon. He never did smile.
Mural honoring the 19 Hot shots that were killed in a fire in 2013.
Cool mural.
Historic St. Michael’s Hotel.
Cool 1955 Chevy BelAir.

Montezuma Castle National Monument

Camp Verde AZ

This monument is a 20 room high-rise apartment, nestled into a towering limestone cliff, tells a story of ingenuity, survival and ultimately, prosperity in an unforgiving desert landscape. The Sinagua were the group of people who lived in the dwellings at Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot. Although people were living in the area much earlier, the Sinagua began building these permanent living structures around 1050 AD. They built these homes in naturally occurring caves in the cliffs using local materials like wood, stone, and mud mortar. Cliff dwellings often had multiple levels, and were accessed using wooden ladders.
This cliff faces south, so the dwellings are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The high location also protected them from damage caused by the annual flooding of Beaver Creek. The dwellings may also have been built high up for protection or to help the Sinagua view approaching travelers.
Despite being called a castle, the dwelling at Montezuma Castle is actually a collection of 20 rooms originally belonging to multiple families, similar to a modern-day apartment building.
These caves may have also been dwellings.
Prickly pear with fruit ready to pick.

Winslow, Arizona

Standin’ on a corner in Winslow Arizona….

I’ve been looking forward to this scene for a long time.
“Takin’ it Easy” was playing on a loud speaker in the street.
The corner is on Route 66.
Classic Route 66 Texaco station.
The Wigwam Motel is a classic Route 66 motel, complete with vintage cars. The wigwams are still available as motel rooms.

Petrified Forest National Park AZ

This National Park, just east of Holbrook AZ, is an unusual place. There is the painted desert which is very colorful landscape, ancient pueblos with petroglyphs, rock formations with more petroglyphs, and then fields of petrified wood of various colorations.

Painted desert viewpoints
Historic Painted Desert Inn
Route 66 monument

The village on the Rio Puerco (Puerco Pueblo) is a prehistoric settlement built of shaped sandstone blocks by ancestral Puebloan people. It was inhabited between 1250 and 1380 AD. At its peak the pueblo had over 100 rooms, with a possible population of 200 people. During the village’s occupation, fields of corn, beans, and squash sustained by the summer rains would have filled the river’s floodplain.

Kiva, a large room that is used for spiritual ceremonies and a place of worship.
Puebloan ruins.
Summer solstice marker. Prehistoric peoples used solar calendars to plan their lives around the changing season. Solstice days also marked important days for annual ceremonial cycles. The rising summer solstice Sun flows down the cleft in the boulder, creating light and shadows on the spiral petroglyph, changing daily until the light touches the center of the spiral.
Petroglyphs.
More elaborate petroglyphs.
More Puebloan ruins.
Newspaper rocks, with a plethora of petroglyphs.
Notice the hand picture on the left.
The Tepees
Another Tepee.
A petrified tree, called the Agate Bridge.
A petrified tree.
Petrified logs.
Beautiful colors.
All of these log segments are petrified wood.