Holbrook to Homolovi Ruins State Park to Dead Horse Ranch State Park to Prescott (Nov 7-17)

On Nov. 7 I headed from Holbrook west to Homolovi Ruins State Park. When I got there the visitors center was closed but this roadrunner was waiting in the parking lot to greet me.


The park has a really nice campground so I spent a couple nights there. I toured the ruins, which date from 1200-1300 or so. It was a huge pueblo type settlement - maybe as many as 2000 rooms, so it was cool to see, but there isn't a lot more than wall outlines left. I also took a few short hikes, saw neat desert and some more petroglyphs.

On Nov. 9, I headed southwest to Dead Horse Ranch State Park, near Cottonwood. On the way I drove thru Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. Really nice scenery, but kind of too built up. A lot of ticky tacky resorts and spas that looked kind of pretentious. Mind you, I did drive thru on the Friday of a three-day weekend (Veterans Day) in what I gather is their busy season when days are not too hot and nights not too cold, so I might have seen it at its worst trafficwise.

Dead Horse Ranch is a really nice desert park on the Verde River.

I was getting sick of packing up every couple days so I settled in and stayed a while. There were a lot of nice short hikes in the park and some nice sites to see in the area. One day I went to Tuzigoot National Monument, another Native American Ruin. Another day I drove over to the V-V site, which has amazing petroglyphs. These ones look like turtles but are actually horned toads, which is the symbol of the water clan that was responsible for calendar keeping. The squiggle ending in a spiral is actually a solar calendar -there's a rock gap that creates a sun dagger across the rock art that lines up with the sharp bends on the solstices and the right days of the season to plant corn.


These are herons:


Another day I drove into Sedona to the Palatki site where there was more rock art- pictographs this time, which are painted on the rock, as opposed to petroglyphs which are carved into the rock. Some of the pictographs are thought to be a couple thousand years old.


There's also a cliff dwelling ruin there - the hike to the ruin has some really nice scenery.

Today I drove from Dead Horse Ranch to Prescott where I'm staying in the Hotel Saint Michael. Had a yummy burger and pint of IPA for dinner at the Prescott Brewing Company. Tomorrow I'm off to Joshua Tree National Park.