Today is Peggy’s birthday.
We have discovered one absolute truth here in Cottonwood at the Verde Valley RV Resort. This place is hotter than hell. The humidity sometimes gets up to 10%. These reasons must be why they refer to this place as a desert. We decided to get going early in the morning, skipping the normal cooking of breakfast and choosing instead to eat in a restaurant called Randal’s. I tried my usual unhealthy fare of chicken fried steak which also came with hash browns, eggs and biscuits and gravy. It was good although I would have preferred to get a little more steak and a few less biscuits. Peggy selected bacon and eggs and thought it was great maybe because they gave her too much bacon. I helped her with the inadvertent overstock.
From Randal’s we drove first to Montezuma Well. The well is located at the top of a hill and is really a small lake or pond with continuous replenishment by springs located in the bottom of the disgusting green water. The water is apparently 80 times richer in carbon dioxide than real water so drinking without treatment is out. There are bright red and vibrant blue damsel flies hanging out in the bushes at the rim. The water from the well dumps into the Verde River although it should more properly be called the Cafe River because it is not green.
It was only about 105 degrees when we were there and little shade is available so we departed after strolling around the well rim. We drove a few miles down the road to Montezuma Castle National Monument. Oddly, Montezuma had nothing to do with this place but some of the white early explorers in the area ignorantly thought the locals were Aztecs because they looked like Indians. There is also no castle. Instead, there are quite a few cliff dwelling pueblos where the Sinagua people lived for about 400 years. The pueblos are pretty neat and they must have been built pretty well because they are still here despite the efforts of grave robbers, unauthorized collectors and thieves. This park has ample shade protecting the tourists from complete desiccation as they roam on the walkways through the Monument. The entry fee is $8 a head but our federal pass got us in free.
Since we were shriveling up like ticks on a skillet in the dry, broiling environment we chose to return to our air conditioned Invader for the miserably hot part of the day. It ended up being hot until about 9:00 at night but we did step out just after dark for a whirlwind trip to Scab-Mart for food and booze. When we returned from shopping, Peggy bailed out of Charlotte and started walking toward the Invader when she noted a life form wriggling in the bushes near the back of the trailer. This particular life form was covered with long hair that was almost all black except for the two white stripes down his back. The skunk was happily feeding on some bird food Peggy had generously dumped on the ground for the birds but it seemed the birds were not going to get any because the skunk was soon joined by one of his relatives and four raccoons who were very efficient at cleaning up everything on the ground. They also tag-teamed the shepherd’s crook we had installed to hold our bird feeder and toppled it, cleaning out the feeder’s contents by morning. It was a massacre.