We arrived at the Visitors Centre to find that entrance fees to all National Parks had been waived this weekend (normally $5/person)...a special over the Veterans Day Weekend...free...sweet! After going through the exhibits on the prehistoric Sinagua people who lived in this region, we headed outside to see the castle. 
Montezuma Castle is really quite amazing. It stands in a cliff recess about 100 feet above the valley. Sinagua farmers began building this five-story, 20 room dwelling early in the 12th century. 
A short distance west is Castle A...once an imposing six-story apartment with about 45 rooms, it is now badly deteriorated....
It was all very impressive! Now to carry onto our next stop...Fort Verde State Historic Park...which ended up being much less impressive.
Fort Verde was a base for General Crook`s U.S. Army scouts and soldiers in the 1870`s and 1880`s. Some of the original buildings still stand, giving visitors a unique glimpse into Arizona`s yesterday. We paid our $4 each and then walked through the displays and exhibits in the main building... 
...before walking across the street to 3 buildings that had been restored...
Okay...fine...that was boring (okay...not really...but it really didn`t hold my interest all that much). Time to move on to our next Park...Montezuma Well National Monument.
Montezuma Well is a limestone sink formed long ago by the collapse of an immense underground cavern. The springs that feed it flow continuously and was a source for both the Honokam and Sinagua to irrigate their crops. Traces of their irrigation ditches, thickly coated with lime, can be seen. The Singua dwellings here vary in size from large pueblos of 55 rooms to one-room houses. Between 1125 AD and 1400 AD, about 200 Sinagua lived here.
There are some ruins along the cliff wall...
We came across a baby tarantula on the pathway...not a very smart place to be if he wants to grow up...
Our final stop was Tuzigoot National Monument which is fairly close to Dead Horse State Park where we are staying. So on our way we stopped in Cottonwood to fuel up with diesel...we are leaving tomorrow and it is much easier to fill up without the 5th wheel. The best diesel price we found was at Fry`s (which is a grocery store affiliated with Krogers in the eastern U.S.). We have a Krogers "card" that we got last year and we had enough points on it to get 10 cents/gallon off...good deal...it is the cheapest diesel we have found so far... $3.67/gallon.
We arrived at Tuzigoot National Monument at 4:00...one hour before closing. Instead of going through the displays in the Visitors Centre, we decided to go see the ruins first. Another very incredible place...amazing how these people built their homes! Tuzigoot (Apache for `crooked water`) is the remnant of a Sinagua village built between 1125 AD and 1400 AD. It crowns the summit of a long ridge that rises 120 feet above the Verde Valley. The original pueblo was two stories high in places and had 77 ground-floor rooms. There were few exterior doors; entry was by the way of ladders through openings in the roofs. The village began as a small cluster of rooms that were inhabited by about 50 persons for a hundred years. In the 1200s the population doubled and doubled again as refugee farmers, fleeing drought in outlying areas, settled here.
Another very interesting place...
Grinding stones...for grinding corn...
It was just before 5:00 when we left the Visitors Centre. It was just a short trip home...however, not long after we turned onto the main road leading to the State Park, there were flashing lights on the highway...fire trucks and police...oh, oh... We were told that the highway would be closed for about an hour...hmmm...must have been a very bad accident! So we had to turn around and find our way around to highway 89A that would take us back to Cottonwood. We made it but it was well after 5:30 by the time we got there. We had planned on getting the trailer hitched up tonight...one less thing to do tomorrow morning...but it was late and we were tired after a full day of sightseeing. So we will do it tomorrow.
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