Montezuma’s Castle and Montezuma’s Well (Arizona Trip -- August 2008, Day One)

“Arizona really was a gas….”

-- Scorpions “Arizona” (from the album “Blackout”)

DAY ONE:  Friday, 15 August 2008

Dave's Starting Pedometer Mileage:  801.

The fact that the flight out of Austin was 30 minutes delayed and I had been up since the pre-dawn time of 5 am, these are the little things that make trips interesting.  The flight said depart Austin at 7.35 am and arrive in Phoenix at 7.55 am, but its’ not a 20 minute flight due to the time change.  Austin is Central time, and Phoenix is Pacific Time.  I drank my Dr. Pepper and ate the cereal bar that was given to me by the flight attendant.  I fully intended that to be the last Dr. Pepper I drank the entire time.  Instead of listening to the Ipod this time, I devoured the book I was reading (“The Hammer of Eden” by Ken Follet).  Not a bad book, but not one that I’ll go back and read again.  I was nearly finished by the time I landed.

Phoenix Sky Harbor isn’t a bad airport, but it is big.  (I was there briefly a few years back as a layover between Salt Lake City and Austin coming back from Jose and Margaret’s wedding.  I saw briefly, because I think the layover was something like 45 minutes, hardly any time to explore.)  Being well-marked, I soon found my way to the baggage claim.  Having been in Row 2 on the plane (and like the fourth one off), there was a symmetry when my bag was about the fourth one to come out.  Following the instructions I had been given, I took Gate 4 (notice a pattern?) which lead me to the bus that took me to the other side of the airport to get my car rental.

For those of you who have never been to Phoenix Sky Harbor, the car rental depot is actually located off airport grounds, on the other side of the interstate.  They have a good bus system designed specifically to ferry airport customers back and forth.  It gave me a chance to see how flat Phoenix is, yet surrounded by mountains.  I was too busy to enjoy the view to dig the camera out and take a picture.  I figured I would just stop somewhere so I could get some pictures.

The car rental depot was nicely designed, and easy to get around.  I had secured a good “weekly” rate for my vehicle, but the price wasn’t as nice once all the taxes and shit were added in.  It doesn’t matter what place you rent from, it’s going to be about the same.  I usually get some of the insurance, so if the vehicle gets injured, I don’t have to pay for a bloody thing (that “X amount per day” will add up, but its good peace of mind).  I also took the option that I didn’t have to bring the vehicle back with a full-tank of gas.  That’s a good option, especially if you’re in an area where you don’t know where the closest gas station is to the airport.  It’ll cost you a little bit, but it’s worth it.

Once my life has been signed away for, I went to pick out any of the mid-sized vehicles they had.  The man at the counter pointed out the only Mustang there, and asked if I would be interested in that.  As I have no interest in Mustangs, I declined.  I wanted something that would be close to the Jetta I normally drove.  Skipping the PT Cruiser (which I think were ugly), and the Kia’s (because I don’t want to drive a car made out of paper-mache and powered by hamsters).  It left me with a Dodge Avenger and a Hyundai Elentra.  Naturally, I chose the black car.  Besides, the Elentra is much closer in size to Argent (my Jetta) than the Avenger was.

I had been warned that I could expect to spend an hour just getting out of Phoenix because of the rush hour.  It was about 9 am by the time I was leaving the car rental depot with the Ebon Elentra, so much of the rush hour traffic had faded.  Driving was pretty easy, the traffic flowed well, and I saw no maniacs on the road.  It was easy to hop in I-17 and head north.  It was not easy to find a place to pull off into (like a local stop-and-rob) to get a couple bottles of water, and more importantly, pictures of the mountains!

Riding the bus from the airport to the rental car depot, I looked out at the skyline of Phoenix.  It was similar to that of Los Angeles, Toronto, and even Austin, with a cluster of tall buildings, everything else appearing to be a few stories high, but the area was very much wide open.  But in the backgrounds were huge mountains!  Mountains that I hadn’t seen in a long time.  It was great!  I love mountains, and it does my soul good to see them every now and then for the re-charge they provide.  The sky was slightly overcast, but soon gave way to clear blue.  If it was over 100 degrees, I didn’t feel it.  I felt no humidity.  The mountains were brown, not the green I was use to.  But, fuck it, mountains are mountains.  They could’ve been purple and I would still love them.

The highways of Phoenix are built below street level, because its’ suppose to cut down on the amount of noise one hears from the highway traffic.  I’ll take their word for it, but I wasn’t able to see the skyline as I drove.  A below-street-level highway system would be good in Austin because it wouldn’t disrupt the skyline.  Of course it would flood every time it rained.  I’m quite sure it does in Phoenix, too.  I’m also quite sure Phoenix gets far, far less rain than Austin does.

The first place I was able to stop was outside the Phoenix city limits, not far from the Loop 101 that surrounds the city.  I got water, to make my pink crack (Crystal Light Energy of a pink-strawberry flavor, for those who don’t know my habits), but there were buildings in the way so I wasn’t able to get any shots of the mountains around Phoenix.  A bit up the road (near a town called Rock Springs) I found a place to safely pull off, and was able to get a few shots.  They weren’t the mountains of Phoenix, but good enough for now.  I had brought the Ipod Mini (the older one) with the car adapter for music on my drive to Flagstaff.  Strangely, the speakers cut out completely after that stop.  I monkeyed with it a few moments, but couldn’t do anything about it.  Where was the frakking Mute button I must’ve hit, because I got no sound at all.  No static, nothing even on XM.  The universe was forcing me to appreciate the silence.  That’s fine, but music playing in the background helps me to appreciate the scenery I see from the car.  I’ll have silence when I’m wandering around places.

North of Phoenix, I-17 reminds me of I-87 (the Adirondack Northway in New York).  There are two lanes each way, and either side has barely any habitation.  (Don’t break down or run out of gas, there’s no one nearby for aid.)  Even the exits were similar; traffic gets off the highway before traffic gets on.  There were hardly any rest-stops or places to pull over, so you’ll just have to take my word for it how beautiful the land was.  I couldn’t realty take pictures and drive at the same time, unless I wanted my driving to suddenly come to an end.

With my Frommer’s (guide-book) map at my side, my first planned stop was Montezuma’s Castle.  It was pretty well-marked to get to.  The trail is a third-of-a –mile, and shows a hillside dwelling.  It was fabulous.  Montezuma’s Castle was named such because the European explorers who first came upon this place thought it was some sort of “summer home” for the Aztec ruler (who lived about 2,000 miles to the south, and who had died a few hundred years before this was “discovered”).  Although completely inaccurate, the name stuck.  It’s pretty much all that was left of the people who lived in the area.  It’s about 200 feet up, and the structure itself has three different levels.  While I doubt it was ever used for warfare, it was a pretty defendable position (providing the defenders had supplies).

Visitor use to be able to travel up ladders to go inside the site, but the constant traffic and people taking bits and pieces of the walls put a stop to it.  While now it can only be enjoyed from afar, it’s still nice to see.  Sooner or later, erosion will wear down what is exposed on the cliff-face, so let’s not do anything to accelerate that.  Nearby were remains of the fields and such that supported the area.  I snapped various pictures to get a sense of the area, and the terrain around it.  Beyond that, there was a small Visitor’s Center with some background info.  I took shots of various placards so I could read them again at my leisure.  Returning to the car, the radio speakers were now working again!  Yeah!  Music makes Dave feel much better.

Just a couple miles up was Montezuma’s Well.  It’s a massive sink hole that was also a water-source for the natives that once lived in the area.  A quick hike brought me up to the rim.  Because it wasn’t too far from the aforementioned Castle, thus it was also misnamed.  The Well is probably 500 across, and about 100 deep (the placards nearby gave the specifics, which I can’t see to recall while writing this).  The Well is fed by a spring, so it’s been constantly filled with water, and it stays at a constant temperature of circa 76 degrees.  There were one or two small dwelling (similar to the Castle) built into the side (just under the lip of the rim).  Keeping in mind this was a very arid environment, and you can’t see the Well until you get right on top of, it must’ve quite a surprise for the first people (whether native or European) who came upon it.

There was a series of stone stairs I was able to go down to the bottom of the hole, where there were other small caves.  It was nice and lush at the bottom, in contrast to the terrain above.  Coming back up to the top of the Well, I followed the trail that lead down the hill to the overflow from the Well, which comes out of the ground and becomes Beaver Creek (which runs in front of Montezuma’s Castle).  The overflow channel was a naturally-occurring hole from the bottom of the Well, but the canal that helped get it to Beaver Creek had some man-made enhancements.

Going around a rocky corner, I got as close as I could to the opening (where the spring comes out, if you will), and sat and enjoyed the beauty for a moment.  I had a thought of actually wading fully into the water, but since there other people at the top of the Well who would eventually find their way here, I decided not to.  Instead I kneeled down and washed my face and hands in the water to wash away any bad energy I might’ve had.  Since the only thing I had eaten all day was the cereal bar on the plane and a bag of trail mix as I was leaving Phoenix, I was sort of on a ritual fast also.  I was going to eat once I hit Flagstaff and got checked into my hotel.

I also took my shoes off and stuck my feet in the water up to my shins.  No, I didn’t pollute the water.  I sat and enjoyed the cool feel on my feet.  Later when others came, I got up and moved to another spot (a small bridge over the canal), and sat with my feet in the water there for a few moments.  As my feet were nicely wet, I walked another portion of the (paved) trail barefoot in the hot sun so my feet would dry off.  Once my feet were dry, and it got too hot to walk barefoot, I put my shoes back on.  I’m not like Cara, who has feet that are as tough as shoe-leather.  Near the Well was the foundation remains of a pit house that had been used by the natives as a smoke-house.  Since only the floor remained, there wasn’t much to see.

Leaving the Well was an adventure itself.  I could’ve gone back the way I came to get back to the highway, but there was a sign stating if I went the other way I would come back to I-17.  I decided to be adventurous, and ended up in the middle of no where on a dirt road.  And it wasn’t a smooth dirt road, either.  It was grooved across the road the entire way, so it made the car shake as I could go no more than 15-20 mph.  The sign said it would take me to where I wanted to be; otherwise I would’ve turned around and gone back the way I came.

There were a few places I was able to pull off and snap a few pictures, but there were many parts of the road where that was not possible (unless you planned on going into a ravine).  This was even more sparsely populated than what I was seeing from the Interstate.  Eventually I came back to a feeder road (paved!), which too me back to I-17.  The time to go from the highway on a paved road to the Well, was about the same as the slow sojourn over the bumpy dirt road leaving the Well.

I tried to note what exit numbers where I noticed certain things, but as I’m writing this journal after the fact (can’t write and drive at the same time), it’s hard to remember.  Instead of getting on I-17, if I had continued on that feeder road (I figured out later) that would’ve brought into the southern end of Sedona.  Continuing up I-17, the elevation signs went from 3,000 (Phoenix area) to 4,000, to 5,000 (south of the Castle), then 6,000, and to where it reached 7,000 at the Flagstaff city limits.  (Flagstaff is just under 7,000 feet above sea level, at something like 6,940 feet).  At some point between the 3,000-4,000 feet mark, the dominating brown landscape started to become green.  And at some point between the 4,000-5,000 feet mark, the scrub was replaced with pine trees.  There was one part, I rounded a bend, the way the highway went into a little valley with an overpass, and it reminded me of Exit 23 of the Adirondack Northway as you came to Warrensburg.  After that, seeing the fullness of the green on the mountains, it was very similar to driving thru the sparsely populated Adirondack Park.

It was just before 3 pm that I reached Flagstaff.  I knew the Chamber of Commerce and Visitor’s Center closed at 5 pm, so I wanted to get interesting information before that.  With that in mind, on the drive up I had passed on the Fort Verde National Park, on the idea that I could hit it again on the way out.  In Flagstaff, there were a couple of mountains that greeted me (the San Francisco Peaks of over 12,000 feet), but with a big dark cloud overhead, it wasn’t the photo opportunity I wanted.  (It had been bright blue sky everywhere before that.)  I-17 stopped being a highway where it was crossed by I-40, and turned into a normal road, and that’s where my hotel was.  I saw the sign for it (which said “No Train Noise” and “Martians Welcome”), and turned in.  Of course, I turned after the sign and ended up in the Mormon compound next door.  Ahhhhhh!  I quickly get back on track, and went on the other side of the sign and got checked in.  The lobby of the hotel had some cardboard cut-out of Grey aliens hanging around, but other than that there was nothing “other-worldly” about the hotel.  And no, I didn’t know that before I made my reservation.

Once I was settled in, the idea was to visit the Visitor’s Center, get some much needed food, and see if I could hit any other attractions before the day light was gone.  After stopping to the Visitor’s Center, getting an assload of literature, I followed a recommendation to the Beaver Street Brewery for food.  It was like going into Davidson Brothers (in Glens Falls).  Since I was still planning to drive around a bit, I didn’t try any of what was on tap.  But as it had started to sprinkle, I decided to do a little bit of writing at the Brewery as I devoured a BBQ chicken pizza.  As I hadn’t really unpacked yet, I had forgot my pink crack at the hotel, so I was forced to consume glasses of Dr. Pepper.  I would make sure from that point on to always carry my pink crack with me, and do the Rachel Ray thing and order water every where.

Returning to the hotel, I made some plans for the next day, as any other place in Flagstaff I wanted to hit had closed (or would close) at 5 pm (and thus wasn’t able to hit any of them that night).  I then decided I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the day hiding in the room.  I ventured downtown to see the non-existent parking on the street, and ended up going into a parking garage.  If the weather was nice, I probably would’ve walked downtown as I probably would’ve been a good hour trek.  Of course, if the weather was nice, I would’ve been heading to the Meteor Crater or something.  Two objectives of mine in Flagstaff were the Lowell Observatory and the Museum of Northern Arizona both closed at 5 pm, so that is why I was downtown.  Flagstaff was very much a “college town.”  Flagstaff felt like downtown Austin (without the music scene), and about the size of Saratoga.

I was basically looking for more of a coffee shop (that wasn’t a Starbucks), some place to loiter as I wrote more of this journal.  Strangely, I didn’t locate any in the area of the couple blocks where I was.  Usually things like that can be found downtown, or within a few blocks of the college.  Hell, I found a number of pubs that catered to the college student (Beaver Street Brewery being one of them).  Since I didn’t want to pay a lot for parking, I retrieved the car, dropped it off at the hotel, had to fight off a panhandler, and took a walking tour of the area to find a place I could sit for a while.  Also since the hotel’s continental breakfast didn’t start until 7 am (and I planned on being on the road long before then), I figured I might be able to find some snack substitute at the local Target.  No snack food there, it wasn’t a grocery Target.  In fact I hadn’t even seen a grocery store, and my hotel was next to the college (Northern Arizona University).  I’m pretty sure the people here don’t exist on sunlight alone.

After wandering around a bit, I did find a place called Campus Coffee Bean to sit and knock out a little of this journal.  I left when the band started playing, as I wanted to hear the voice of my muse instead.  I snuggled down for bed at 9.30 pm.  Before you ask why so early, keep in mind I’ve been up since 5 am, and with the time change it was closer to 3 am.  Sleep didn’t happen right away, probably all those Dr. Pepper’s I drank at Beaver Street, but it did eventually.

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