Quirky thoughts from an old man.
After being closed for three months for the Covid Crisis the Pueblo Grande Museum is reopening in early July. I’m hoping to be asked back as a docent. It struck me as a good omen that the photo above bears a striking resemblance to this one from Stonehenge taken in the same era but on a different continent.
Apparently “sensible shoes” were not a requirement at either venue. And what about the four young women?
Yesterday afternoon I had a couple of times when I felt extreme fatigue and perhaps had a temperature. Our electronic thermometer has a low battery so we are using the hand on the forehead method. This morning I feel lousy but not terrible. If I had CV it was an extremely mild case.
Photo is from our last road trip BC (Before Corona) in Burro Canyon in Marana AZ we found these petroglyphs.
Remember if you feel thirsty or your urine is a dark color, drink more water.
This was in the same restroom as the no diving sign from yesterdays post. It is very useful information for hikers in Phoenix in the summer.
If you visit the Pueblo Grande Museum when I am staffing the Artifact Cart you are required to “Ask me a Question.” Yesterday the best question was: “Why didn’t they just move somewhere nicer.”
I am the Artifact on the Artifact Cart. You can touch a thousand year old axe head and hear me tell why their pots had round bottoms.
Nurit and I took a road trip to Globe, Roosevelt Lake and The Tonto National Monument.
The highlight of the ruin was that you could easily walk up to it and go inside. Which is definitely worth doing. Look here: Continue reading “Tonto”
Noun: Spanish word for peak. So the mountain near Tucson named “Picacho Peak” is redundant.
Example: Picacho Peak is a famous picacho.
In October we bushwhacked over to the structure we’d seen from the trail in September. We were able to confirmed that it is certainly a human made structure. Who made it and when is still an open question. It was built in an area that has more grasses than most of the desert nearby. my guess is that it is a shepherd’s corral dating from 1900 +/- 30 years. But I am speculating. I shared the photos and the location with the Phoenix City Archeologist and I’m hoping to get her much more informed opinion in the next few months.
PapagoNoun: Archaic word referring to the Tohono O’odham peoples of Southern Arizona. Try not to use this word. It is a derogatory Pima word meaning “bean eaters” and was picked by the Spanish and then the Northern Europeans. To the Tohono O’odham it is the “N” word.
Example: Do the Papago, I mean the Tohono O’odham, have a museum?
PetroglyphNoun: A petroglyph is rock art created by early men. Using hand held tools they removed part of the stone surface leaving patterns and images. Petroglyph is commonly used in the American Southwest, in other part of the world it is called engraving.
Example: The Big Horn Sheep petroglyph in Waterfall Canyon was similar to the one at Deer Valley. Continue reading “Words Seldom Seen: Petroglyph”
Walking down the circumference trail at Piestewa on Sunday September 29 I saw this odd pile of stones. I have walked by this spot at least 100 times in the past two years. The original photo before I zoomed and color corrected looked like this:
It is about 200 yards off the trail so it will require some bushwhacking. I’m hoping to find some time this week to investigate further. It could be of recent origin, it could be Hohokam or…..