TRAVEL DAY

Sunday, April 19

Travel day with optional stop at Casa Grande and Veterans Memorial

Early Sunday morning there was a knock on everyone's door.  Sonny had made an early morning run to Bread and More and brought us all hot Cinnamon rolls.  Yummy   what a great way to start the day.

We all departed the Tucson RV Park at different times to travel to Camp Verde near Sedona.


CASA GRANDE NATIONAL MONUMENT

 

 

 

The national monument consists of the ruins of multiple structures surrounded by a compound wall constructed by the ancient people of the Hohokam period, who farmed the Gila Valley in the early 13th century. "Archeologists have discovered evidence that the ancient Sonoran Desert people who built the Casa Grande also developed wide-scale irrigation farming and extensive trade connections which lasted over a thousand years until about 1450 C.E.

Ranger Talk at Casa Grande

"Casa Grande" is Spanish for "big house" (Siwañ Wa'a Ki: in O’odham); these names refer to the largest structure on the site, which is what remains of a four story structure that may have been abandoned by 1450. The structure is made of caliche, and has managed to survive the extreme weather conditions for about seven centuries. The large house consists of outer rooms surrounding an inner structure. The outer rooms are all three stories high, while the inner structure is four stories high. The structures were constructed using traditional adobe processes. The process consisted of using damp adobe to form the walls and then waiting for it to dry, and then building it up with more adobe. Case Grande contained a ball court.  The first European to view the Hohokam complex in November 1694 named it Casa Grande. Graffiti from 19th-century passers-by is scratched into its walls;

 Casa Grande now has a distinctive modern roof covering built in 1932