Casa Grande ruins and Other Tidbits

South and east of Phoenix not far from Florence, AZ where we stayed for a few days, is a National Monument named Casa Grande Ruins. It is about 700 years old having been built between 1300-1350. It is a fascinating location and very well done. Our congratulations to the park service for preserving this site and for their detailed and informative displays. Lots of fascinating information is presented in the visitor center and on the grounds in plaques viewable as you walk around.

We thought this an interesting artists rendition of Casa Grande. It was stuck back in a corner of the visitor center, we thought it should have been displayed more prominently.

Casa Grande is the site named for the large multi story structure depicted in this drawing. It has a roof cover for protection and preservation from the elements.

No we don’t have a drone so we borrowed this aerial view to show Casa Grande. Additionally the following statements came from an informative plaque at the site.

Archaeologists do not know for sure why the Casa Grande was built. Its original purpose remains a puzzle.

Was It an astronomical observatory? Perhaps. Why do the walls line up north-south-east-west? We still can observe the sun and moon line up with certain holes in the wall year in and year-out

Were sacred ceremonies held here? Did a leader who oversaw the all-important irrigation canals work inside these rooms?

Did an influential family or clan call the Casa Grande their home.

The answers remain unknown. The Casa Grande likely served many purposes, many functions.

This is a view of the Casa Grande from the ground level. It is a large building. The center was originally four stories and the sides were three stories.

There is more at the site than just the Great House. It appears there were various other dwellings and courtyards. The original builders had no written history so archaeologists are dependent on what they can find and logical conclusions as to the real extent and nature of the complex.

This is a view of the Great House wall that faces north. It shows the massive side walls that are very thick.

This mural is along one of the trails at the site. It talks about the extensive canal and irrigation system that the original builders created. It seems they cultivated over 19,000 acres and raised a variety of crops. The best estimate is that there were over 220 miles of irrigation canals at the height of Casa Grande.

Here is a look back at the Great House. We are walking towards the visitor center. In some writeups they talk about the metal protective roof. It is quite a structure in and of itself.

We are walking towards the Visitor Center away from the Great House. The main parts to the Great House Complex are on the west side of the visitor center, where we are at this moment. There are other parts to the complex just north of the visitor center and there are walking trails and picnic areas associated with that area.

Around the property they have these oval clay markers adjacent to many plants and cactus identifying them. This indicates a Queens Agave that happens to be in a pot. Many of the other cactus were in the ground with their markers, identifying the cactus, lying on the ground beside the plant.

When approaching Casa Grande Ruins from the east along Coolidge Blvd there is a set of train tracks, this sign is just before those tracks. It reads “Caution Trains approach at Speeds up to 60 MPH”.

Fortunately there is a crossing gate that blocks the highway when a train approaches, but 60 MPH is fairly fast and one should use caution – look both ways.

After visiting the ruins one must partake of some sustenance. We stopped at a local restaurant and George had a bowl of Menudo which was well prepared.

With Menudo you often get a selection of accoutrements that you can use to enhance the taste to your own discretion. Here we have chopped green onions, Mexican oregano, and Chiltepin Peppers. The peppers are the little round red balls in both the Menudo and the small plastic cup.

The Chiltepin can be quite spicy being about 23 times hotter than a standard Jalapeño Pepper. Don’t just throw a handful in your mouth and bite down. They do add a nice flavor to the Menudo when used in moderation. With the added accoutrements the menudo was fabulous.

Different subject: We needed to get our two Westies, Ozzie and Yogi, a haircut. They don’t shed so they need periodic trimming. We went to a dog groomer in Coolidge and this was the greeter at the counter.

It is a Great Pyrenees, only 7 months old, and obviously quite friendly. Fortunately the owner was one of the people whom worked there and got the dog under some semblance of control. He is not very consistent at running the credit card.

This is a quick look into the dog grooming area. They let the dogs wander around and interact with each other while they are working on a different dog. We had seen this activity in one other grooming location as we have traveled about. Looks as if the dogs have a lot of fun here.

That concludes a brief introduction into the Casa Grande Ruins, they are a fascinating, marvelous place. There is a lot more detailed information on the Internet. The National Park Service has a great detailed web site. You can view their web site by Clicking Here.

We hope you enjoyed this post, we certainly enjoyed looking around the ruins, eating the Menudo, and getting the boys groomed..

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments. All the best – George & Deanna

True Value Hardware Store - Florence, AZ

When we got to Florence we made inquiries regarding things to see and do in the local area. We were told emphatically that we must go to the True Value Hardware store on Main Street in Florence.

Over the years we have been to a lot of Hardware Stores and could not figure out what the obsession was with this location. The manager at the RV Park said go there, a waitress at a restaurant during lunch said “Don’t miss the hardware store”, several people we chatted with whom are staying in the RV Park insisted we go there. So we went and the following is what we saw.

This is the Main Street front of the hardware store. It is, at this point in time, three separate adjacent buildings that have been acquired over time and converted into one large building. It started in 1991 and has grown over the years. One write up describes the place as a hardware store with a huge personality.

Yes they do have hardware and the typical stuff you would find in a True Value. But they also have lots, and lots, and lots of other stuff. Basically if you can’t find it here, you don’t need it. You can clearly see the row upon row of boxes containing nuts, bolts, and fasteners of all shapes and sizes.

As we shall see there are all sorts of decorative items and useful and useless items of a myriad of shapes and sizes.

Here is a selection of metal items that you can hang on your wall or use as you wish. There were several displays such as this one scattered about the store.

Yes they have the normal hardware items, lots and lots of them.

Do you need a pen? The bird stands on its foot perched on your desk ready for you to write whatever you wish. As you can see they are available in multiple different colors.

More stuff, the aisles are packed, barely enough space to get around though it does seem orderly and well cared for, not just a shambles of junk.

Did you need a hat? In an adjacent room there is this collection of hats hanging on the wall. Which color would you like?

Did we mention hats? They had a wide variety of styles, shapes, and colors. Something for everyone’s head.

We are looking past an old bicycle into the lawn and garden area. They seemingly have everything and anything for your landscaping needs.

Do you need an umbrella? The white swan in front even has its own stand so you can set it by the door and easily grab it on your way out. Pink flamingo umbrella anyone?

Here are more lawn and garden items. It is really an honest to goodness True Value Hardware store that has a whole lot of other items many of which we are sure you will be interested in.

How about a toad complete with warts? They are available in various sizes and as you peruse the items in the store you will see they are also available in different colors.

Yes more hardware stuff. They have paint and plumbing supplies and anything you would expect at a True Value and a whole lot of items you would not expect.

Here is an interesting item, it is a "Red Neck Party Cup". We did not make this up, it is for sale on the end of the third aisle that branches to the left off the main aisle in the store. We actually thought it was pretty cleverly done.

The only firearms we saw in the store were these 10 shot rubber ban guns. They may have had firearms in an area that we just missed.

Hanging below these wooden pistols are also some wooden rifles, something for everyone.

In a small room down the main aisle is this character sitting in what used to be the original restroom. The public restroom is now in a small park across the street.

When you walk up to see the character he is activated by a motion sensor and goes into movements and a dialog that describes how great and wondrous this store is in all its glory.








That concludes our brief tour around the True Value Hardware Store in Florence Arizona. The images and words don’t adequately describe the place. It is fascinating beyond words and the images can’t seem to capture the enormity and diversity of the place.

As everyone has said “Be sure and go to the True Value Hardware Store”. And so on your next excursion through Florence or this general area be sure and go to the store, it is worth every minute of your time.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

All the best – George & Deanna

Rancho Sonora Inn and RV Park

We stayed for about 10 days at Rancho Sonora Inn and RV Park just south of Florence, Arizona. It is an older park but in really nice condition, well kept, we thought we would give you a quick look around this RV Park, it is a great place to stay.

This is the entry into the facility. The inn portion has been here since the 1930’s and seems quite nice though we did not get into any of the rooms nor accommodations. There is a swimming pool at the Inn and it is available for use by those of us staying in the RV Park. There are about 85 sites in the RV Park with a few more currently being added. The RV Park has been here a little over 20 years.

This is the old water tank. It served the needs of the establishment for many years and has been replaced by a larger storage facility that sits on the ground. This tank is still used for some of the irrigation on the landscaping and certainly provides visual appeal.

They have their own well here and the water is rather good. There are many locations in Arizona where you don't want to drink the water, it has a terrible taste and way too many minerals and other substances. In those locations you buy drinking water.

This building is the office and clubhouse. There is a great kitchen, a large laundry facility, reading library and all the other accoutrements you would find in such a dwelling.

We don’t usually take pictures of dumpsters, however, the one on the right side presented some notoriety. It is for recycle and only recycle. You can put all sorts of stuff in there, glass, cardboard, plastics of various types, newspaper, cans etc. etc. In our travels around Arizona and for that matter in many RV parks recycling has been very limited to non-existent. It was refreshing to see this approach. It is a great dumpster and we like to recycle when we can.

This image gives you an idea of some of the landscaping. Since the park has been here for quite a while the cactus and trees are fairly large. The staff does an excellent job in keeping the grounds looking really great.

Here beside one of the RVs is a very nice Lemon Tree. There are several lemon trees scattered around the park. The winters, as you can imagine, are not very cold but the flip side is the summers are very, very hot. We are not far from Phoenix and it gets beastly hot here in the summer.

This shows part of one of the RV sites. Not all sites are this large or this nicely landscaped but several of them are. Many people come here year after year and have the same site, many of those folks make personal improvements to their sites. The sites vary in size from fairly small to rather large, as is this one.

As we mentioned, much of the park has very nice, natural landscaping. Here we see some, what look like, dead Flamingos lying on the ground. Perhaps the heat caused their demise. No the pink colored prickly cactus you see in the background was not dyed or painted to match the color of the flamingos, that is the natural color of that species of prickly pear.

Here we are looking at the courtyard for the Inn. It is a tranquil and well done setting with the rooms around the perimeter of the open area. Again we see lots of nice, refreshing landscaping.

Here is our site. It is fairly large for a commercial RV park. Many of the places in southern Arizona have the RVs packed in really close to each other, much closer together than you see here; we call them sardine parks because that’s how close they get spaced together. Each site here has a concrete patio and table and in our case we have room for our two Westies enclosure and our truck. For our taste, it is a very nice site.

This view is looking down the road from in front of our site. There are several sites that are not occupied, as of yet. In the next few weeks the park will fill up. The snowbird season gets into high swing starting in mid December and continues through March.

For example; there is a high end RV Park not far from here where you can stay from September through January for about $1200, total. Starting in January it is $1,150 a month. It is a fancy place with lots of activities and things to do. You can see the premium they charge for the snowbird months.

For comparison, here at Rancho Sonora it is $450 a month for a site but we were told that rate may go up.

The folks that are living in this RV are from North Dakota in a town 10 miles south of the Canadian Border. They come down here for 5 months every year and have been coming here for 22 years. They leave their trailer parked here, pay a storage fee, and drive their car back and forth to North Dakota. The trailer originally had colorful decals but the blistering Arizona sun caused them to come off. The sun raises quite a havoc with the RVs here in Arizona.

When you leave your RV here over summer many people recommend that you leave buckets of water set around inside the RV to help maintain some humidity. People who live here year round will go into you RV periodically and refill the buckets.

The plant in the center between the two Saguaro is an Ocotillo and is located along the access road near the entrance to the park. It is a plant and not a true cactus. It is a large shrub with long cane-like unbranched spiny stems. The stems don't have leaves in normal dry conditions, here it is being watered and looks lush and green. In the desert area when it rains the Ocotillo develops leaves and beautiful flowers that attract hummingbirds.

We hope you enjoyed a brief tour around Rancho Sonora Inn and RV Park. It is a great place to stay, wonderful landscaping, many large sites, and excellent people to meet and chat with. It is not far from shopping in case you need anything and close to great hiking trails and wonderful eateries.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.
All the best – George & Deanna

Catalina State Park - A Brief Look

Catalina State Park is one of the wonderful State Parks in Arizona. There are a lot of hiking trails in the park of various lengths and difficulty. The park and trails get a lot of use from bike riders to hikers. The RV sites are well spaced with a lot of room between most of them. They only have water and electric at their sites with centrally located dump station facilities available to get rid of waste water from your trailer holding tanks.

This is a map showing the location of Catalina State Park. It is just north of Tucson located in an area called Oro Valley. The park is nestled up against the Catalina Mountains.

This image was taken at our campsite and if you look around you might see birds hiding in the bushes and dry grasses. They can be difficult to spot.

The one hiding in the grasses in the image above came out and it is a Greater Roadrunner. We saw them in several places and we heard the coyotes almost every night but did not see them chasing the road runner.

As we had mentioned earlier there are a lot of trails to hike in Catalina State Park. This is a one mile purportedly easy hike through some ruins left by the Hohokam Native American many, many years ago.

This was a neat sign at the start of the trail. We saw many lizards along the trail but we are not sure if we saw a Spiny Lizard. They are really neat desert critters.

It was wonderful to see this group of young school children out on a tour along the trail. There was a State Park Guide who was teaching them about the Hohokam ruins and the desert environment. It seemed to be an active, student participation exercise where they were asked probing questions about the surroundings and the flora and fauna. It was also refreshing to see no smart phones in use by any student.

Unfortunately none of the literature we had read mentioned any stairs. There were lots of them and Yogi, our older Westie, had some difficulty navigating them going up. At one point, most of the way up. Deanna had to carry him from there to the top. He did really well going down the stairs probably like the old horse heading back to the barn, they can go very fast.

Once up the stairs you are on kind of a plateau and you can see the mountains rising beyond. It is great country with open vistas in all directions.

There was a variety of cactus along the trail. Here is a barrel cactus.

This ruin was not from the Hohokam Native Americans that lived here from about 1100-1250 rather from a rancher that was in the area in the early 1900s. The enclosures left over from the Hohokam were largely piles of rocks and not really very discernible as dwellings. We think this small structure was one of the earlier “Tiny Houses” albeit without the conveniences of running water and air conditioning. It looks to be a tough place to live.

This is very nice Saguaro Cactus specimen. It is large with many arms and appeared to be in great condition.

We are now back down off the trail, Yogi has successfully maneuvered the steps to get back to the truck and we are all safe and sound.

This is a Verdin, a small bird seen quite frequently in the southwest. The dark spot that you see on the shoulder is actually red in color. The shadows from the trees muted the colors. You can see several oranges cut in half and skewered onto the branches of the tree. The Verdin and many other birds love to eat the pulp and sweet juice from the oranges.

There are no instructions as to how to use the hummingbird feeder and this Verdin is trying to figure out how to get to all the sugar water. We are not sure why he has chosen this approach as at other times they readily fed from the feeder.

We saw several different butterflies while at Catalina State Park. This shows the top side of an Empress Leilia or Leilia hackberry butterfly. This was the very first visitor to the oranges that we put in the trees. It is amazing to us how quickly they can find the oranges. Several of them were in at one time feeding on the orange juice.

If we thought birds were hard to identify, we get quickly and easily confused with butterflies. This image shows the same Empress Leilia sitting in the same location as in the image above but with its wings folded so you see the underside of the wings. There is quite a difference in appearance.

This was just a fun image we had taken earlier, at a different location, of a bird called a Grebe with a fish. We think it is a Clark’s Grebe but in the area where the picture was taken there are both Western and Clark Grebes and during the winter months the visual differences between the two can be quite subtle and indistinguishable. In a Clark’s Grebe the line of the black cap goes above the eye and in the Western the black cap goes below the eye but during winter plumage this distinction is not reliable. The fishing appears to be good.

We hope you enjoyed the brief tour around a small part of Catalina State Park. It is a fascinating place and quite heavily used by daily visitors not just us campers. It is after all close to Tucson.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments. All the best – George & Deanna