"Tall House"

I woke up Saturday about 5 am and turned on the block heater.....it was down to 55 inside the coach, so it must have been under 20 Friday night.  After tossing and turning for almost an hour I got up at 6.......I still do not sleep well the night before we move.....I guess that is what naps are for, right?  Without our block heater there is no way the 6V92 would fire with the temperature this cold, but with it the coach starts right up as if it were 90 degrees outside.  TLE was up at 7.....early for her.....so we decided to leave as close to 8 an as possible.  We only had about an hour of driving at the most up to Cameron, and we wanted to do a little site seeing after we got set up.

We manged to leave the park just about 8:15.  The drive north on US 89 out of Flagstaff was just beautiful as we rolled past the San Francisco Peaks....at one point we were just over 7,500' elevation, and then began a 3,500' descent to Cameron, AZ.  Cameron is located right on the banks of the Little Colorado River and has a large trading post, a quality hotel, a market, a gas station, and it's own RV park.  The park is basically a gravel parking lot with 21 sites (we are in #21), 30 amp service, water and sewer.......it is located just across the highway from the trading post, and for our purposes it is more than adequate.

We arrived just about 9:30, and were able to snag the last big spot that would fit our 62' without dropping the trailer......two nights for $48.  We chose Cameron because it is just 1.5 miles from SR 64 which will take us over to Grand Canyon Village on Sunday.  Additionally, it is only 25 miles from Wupatki National Monument.  Wupatki means "Tall House" in the Hopi language.  The largest of the sandstone houses (below) built by the Sinagua, Cohonina, and Kayenta Anasazi peoples (around 500 AD) who all seemed to live peaceably together in this area.  This house had over 100 rooms, and was several stories tall before it fell into ruin.

We finally got going a little after 11 am on our day's adventure......the cool thing is the road to Wupatki is a 50 mile long loop that finishes up near Sunset Volcano Crater, and the scenery is spectacular.

We arrived at the first set of "pueblo" ruins around 11:40.....these particular ruins are called "Lomaki" which means "Beautiful House".

Lomaki ruins

Elaine's pano of the "Tall House" and 

surrounding area

We arrived at the main visitor's center for the National Monument around 11:45.  Just behind the visitor's center is the largest of these ruins (above).  Elaine got this great Pano shot of the entire complex.  Back in the 30's the on site rangers actually lived in two of the rooms of this ruin.  Once again we were able to use our Golden Age card for free admission to the visitor's center and the Wupatki ruins.  We spent about 30 minutes walking around the ruins in the blustery, cold wind.....we were back up to about 6,000 feet by this time.  When we finished at 12:15 we headed out front where it was a little warmer and utilized these picnic tables to eat our lunch and enjoy the expansive view.

The loop continues on back to US 89, but not before you pass by Sunset Crater Volcano....this volcano is responsible for all of the volcanic rock in the area, and tops out at over 8,000' elevation.

As we merged back on to US 89 at over 7,000' elevation we drove through snow flurries for about a mile before we began descending back down to Cameron.  We arrived back "home" around 2:30......just in time to watch the "Final Four" NCAA games, which I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening watching.  It was a good day.

A little snow on the San Francisco peaks

Thanks for stopping by!