Volcano, Pueblo Ruins and a Rodeo! (6/30)

Per usual this summer, the last weekend in June was fun-filled and action packed.  On Saturday alone I visited two new National Monuments, drove through a crazy mountain town and experienced my first real rodeo!

At training in Santa Monica all the National Park Service interns in my program were advised, “if there is a rodeo in town, you should be there.”  Taking this advice very seriously, my fellow intern and roommate Laurel got to work finding a local rodeo almost as soon as we got to Flagstaff.  So, earlier in the month we set aside June 30 as the day to visit the World’s Oldest Rodeo in Prescott, Arizona. 

We decided to go to the 7:30 pm show and Prescott is only a few hours away, so we had all morning and part of the afternoon for other adventures.  Jay went to Sedona for some mountain biking and Laurel and I headed north to visit Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki National Monuments.  Perhaps surprisingly, Sunset Crater Volcano is the second unit of the National Park Service I have visited containing an inactive volcano.  The first was Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui, Hawaii.  You would probably expect a dormant volcano in Hawaii – perhaps a little surprising in Arizona! 

The landscape around Sunset Crater reminded me of the lava fields my friend Brent and I hiked on Maui, but the ponderosa pine trees reminded that I was not on a tropical island, but in high-altitude, northern Arizona.  As with other weekend adventures, visiting Sunset Crater revealed a whole new Arizona landscape to me – one full of volcanic rocks and tough, yet beautiful plants like the scarlet gilia that manage to survive and thrive in harsh conditions.  I also learned more about the history of Arizona and the people who farmed the land around Sunset Crater for 400 years before its eruption more than 900 years ago. 

Similar to the drive through Petrified Forest National Park, Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki National Monuments are connected by a scenic highway drive that includes views of the Painted Desert. 

A few generations after farmers left the Sunset Crater area due to the lava flows and erupting cinders, their families returned to the area to settle at what is now Wupatki National Monument.  This unit of the National Park Service is home to the remains of masonry pueblos built in the 1100s.  The largest dwelling had about 100 rooms and served as the center of a farming community and hub for trade. 

Today, the pueblo looks like a ruin, but over the years it has been partially rebuilt and restored.  Early in the history of managing such park units the standard was to rebuild them to their original state.  During these early years, walls were rebuilt and a ranger even lived inside the pueblo.  He lived alone at first, but wrote to his fiancé’ with the floor plan, explained the living conditions in the desert and she agreed to come out to Arizona for the adventure.  While it makes a funny story, archeologists today would probably cringe at walling up and running electricity into a piece of early American history from the 1100s.  With new archeological perspectives, the additions and rebuilds have been removed and visiting Wupatki is like stepping back in time. 


Here are some photos of Wupatki, which is more difficult to pronounce than you might think....

View from an overlook just south of Jerome, AZ.

With two new stamps in our National Park Service passports, Laurel and I headed south to Flagstaff to pack and get ready for the World's Oldest Rodeo in Prescott.  As with Sedona the weekend before, there are two ways to get to Prescott - I-17 south or 89A south.  For fun and adventure, we chose 89A south again.  It was a beautiful drive through Sedona and the adventure continued as we drove through plains and mountains and eventually ended up on the side of a mountain in Jerome, Arizona.  Buildings looked like they were about to fall off the edge of the mountain and I have not experienced such tiny, hair pin turns since my adventure in Ireland with my dear friend Katie.  We did not have time to stop and check out this crazy town because we needed to be at the rodeo at 7:30 pm, but we did quickly pull off to take a photo of the mountain view just outside of Jerome.  The beauty and variety of landscapes Arizona offers continues to amaze me.

Because we took the scenic route to Prescott, we arrived at about 6:30 pm after leaving around 2 pm.  This is much longer than googlemaps would have advised, but worth the scenic journey.  With our tent and sleeping bags in tow, we kept our eyes peeled for a campsite and found one run by the city near a lake just outside of town.  After a little debate over which one had the most shade and a bit of a run-in with a family over the best looking site, we set up the tent and headed in to town for the rodeo!

The World's Oldest Rodeo was everything I hoped it would be: ropin', ridin', cowboys, cowgirls, rodeo queens, a crazy rodeo clown who did an insane motorcycle jump and lots of country music.  I grew up listening to country music in my mom's car and could not wait to have my own car and play my own music - I was tired of country!  But I think I'm having a change of heart out west and country is creeping into my playlists.  Thanks, in part, to the rodeo.  The rodeo was great and we even joined the crowd for a cowboy dance afterwards.  It was pretty cheesy and took place in a strip mall parking lot, yup you read that right, but the band was great, dancing was fun and cowgirl and cowboy outfits were amazing.  Here are some fun photos and videos from the evening.

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