…So, we’ve started Sonlight’s Core 3, which covers North American History up until the mid-1800s. It starts with the native people of the continent. It got me to thinking… Even though I have, this year, really favored unstructured fieldtrips/outings into the wild, it would be a shame to ignore the history that is so readily available to us, here in Arizona.
It had been since I was a kid that I had been to the ancient Pueblo dwellings of Montezuma Castle & Montezuma Well, which I knew would fit in perfectly with our studies, and was only about 90 minutes to the north of us.
I had actually intended for us to go the the “Castle” first, but got confused at the exit, since the signage for the casino that’s at the same exit is much better marked. I accidentally got us back on the freeway, so by default, we ended up visiting the Well first, which is about 15 minutes further up the road.
It turned out to be an ideal situation, after all. We stopped first at the picnic area for a snack… and what a picnic area it was!! It was previously — like 800 years ago — an agricultural field for the Sinagua Indians of the area, and the field is bordered with ancient, small irrigation canals. It is now a flat, grassy area (though the grass is only starting to grow, this early spring) dotted with large trees – junipers, Fremont Cottonwoods and Arizona Sycamores. (I could hear the twittering and calling of unfamilar birds around me, but, alas, the kids usually need so much of my directed attention that when they’re with me, I have to virtually ignore the birds that are calling to me…) The picnic area is so lovely, it’s almost worth a return trip in itself. I could just imagine that, in a few months, the mostly-leafless trees will be lush and green. We’ll have to come back.
Audrey and Wes don’t look too happy in the following pic, but really, everyone was so pleased to have a safe, beautiful space in which to run around. They just don’t like to pose for shots. (I left the house w/o freshly charged batteries in my camera, so I was taking only limited shots. Usually, I’d choose a shot in which no one was grimacing, but… whatchya see is whatchya get in this post.)
Audrey the Wonder Girl is walking already. She turned 10 months on 02/06 and took 6 steps on 02/02… She now regularly takes 2-6 steps at a time, but, true to form, in a “me do it!” kind of way. She won’t walk if I raise her to standing; she’ll only walk if she’s raised her own self.
Here’s my snaggle-toothed 9yo son, Ethan. Behind him is the trunk of an Arizona Sycamore. Those trees have the most lovely, artfully colored bark… shades of white, sage and tan, all mottled… Just beautiful.
Now… onto Montezuma Well. First, there is NO FEE to access this National Monument. That’s always a plus. For a mom with four kids, some of them quite small, I’m always on the lookout for spots to go that are cheap, interesting for kids & adults alike, provide some opportunity to stretch the legs w/o tiring out the littles, are out in a natural setting, and it’s always nice when the location has an educational value. Montezuma Well has it *ALL*. The main trail is a loop only 1/3 mile long, but much of it is stepped, so unless you “go in the out door,” and then turn around at roughly the halfway point, it’s not stroller (or wheelchair) accessible. There are also two spurs that are WELL-worth (no pun intended!) the seeing, one down into the well, and another down to the creek. I just hefted Audrey onto one hip, and held Wesley’s hand going down the uneven stone steps, and we did just fine.
It’s hard to describe the well. It is a naturally occurring limestone sinkhole about 1/4 mile across, which has a mineral spring that rises from it, then seeps through some gaps in the well “wall” and meets up with a large creek (Beaver Creek) below. Surrounding the well, on the cliff walls, are the remains of the homes of the agricultural Native American Indian tribe, the Sinaguas. Most of the dwellings started as caves that were built up and out, providing half-natural, half-manmade shelter. Taking the spur down into the well is fairly steep, but provides an opportunity to almost step back in time and be really close to the ancient dwellings. When I was a kid, they had part of the spring bubbling up through a pipe and one could drink from it, but it was no surprise that they don’t let folks do that anymore.
I forgot my camera (shoot!) for this part, so here are some pics provided by others:
(courtesy of www.campverde.org)
(Courtesy of: http://www.mikebradshaw.net/photoblog/index.php?showimage=210&PHPSESSID=a7ef7ba1ccd5ec202c0da9cd461bc6d4)
Here’s off of the spur down to Beaver Creek, courtesy of http://home.earthlink.net/~andreas_black/pics/az_mz_well_outlet.jpg . This isn’t actually the creek; it’s the ancient irrigation canal that was formed to collect the water before all of it runs into the creek.
After the Well, we drove the five minutes back into “town”, which was McGuireville, and stopped at a store — I think it was called Barefoot Country Store — which is like a minimart/convenience store and deli/tiny grocery store combined. I was a bit worried, because even though the kids were fairly well-behaved, the store was teensy, and we just couldn’t help, by the sheer mass of five people, but overwhelm the place. It was our goal to purchase lunch items for now, and snack items for later. Buying lunch wouldn’t be a difficult decision for most families, but when Wes and me both need to be gluten-free, it can be difficult to figure out what to buy. I was afraid that we were being an annoyance to the folks around us, but as we were leaving, a lovely lady said to me, “You have a beautiful family.” That doesn’t really bespeak to the behavior of said family, but it made me feel more at ease. Anyways, $24 later, we were outta there, and back to the picnic area at the Well, which we quickly enjoyed, then set back out for Montezuma Castle.
There is a visitor’s center at the Castle, with a nicely-stocked, reasonably-priced little gift shop and a mini-museum. The only problem was that the guy at the front desk called Audrey a BOY. Sheesh!! She was in a PINK sweater with PINK-trimmed overalls, PINK shoes, with a PINK-striped blanket. This shouldn’t bother me, but it does, every time. We’ve gotta get that girl to grow some hair. 
The entrance fee was only $5 for adults, free for kids 15 & under. So, the $$ we spent, total, to access the Well and the Castle, was that lone $5. Cool.
The path to check out the cliff ruins/Castle is smoothly paved, and easy to push a stroller on. To see: the “main” castle, plus numerous other ruins, built into the caves of the cliff. Some of them are at the base, and one can get really close to them, even touching the stacked-stone walls of some, marvelling that they were built 800+ years ago.
Here are the kids, with the cliff Castle behind them, Wesley bravely smiling, even though his baby sister is pinching his cheek.
It’s hard to get a sense of scale from these pics, but the castle is really enormous, and very high up the cliff.
At both places, we paused along the paths, reading just about every sign that illuminated both the natural history and the Native American history of the Well and the Castle. We also got the little pamphlets provided by the National Park Service, which Ethan read to us while we were in the truck as I nursed Audrey, both after the Well and after the Castle…
All in all, it was a very fun, beautiful, educational (not to mention cheap!) trip.
And, that was it! We had to race back to town, to get Ethan to an overnighter at a friend’s house by 5 p.m., else we probably would have checked out Fort Verde, as well. Next time, eh?
(If I had looked beforehand, I probably would have printed this educator’s guide provided by the NPS. There is also a waiver for “bona fide” educators, meaning that the school they represent qualifies for a tax-exempt status. I’m not bona fide. 
)
