Casa Grande Ruins and Bike ride

Saturday: November 3 , 2012 

We started the day with an hour bike tour of the RV Park.  Patty is really very happy with her new bike.  She is much closer to the ground and she can put both feet on the ground when stopped making her safer.  Also, for now, I think I will keep mine.  It’s no problem putting it in the back of the truck up near the cab.  I have it secured with a bungee so it won't get into the 5^th wheel hitch.  Now all is good on the bike front J

After the bike tour we took a sightseeing adventure to see the Casa Grande ruins.  The ruins are actually a national park.  The ruins are of a small city with a large building that was constructed around 1400 by the local Indians.  The building is made of adobe which is somewhat like mud so it is amazing that it is still standing after 600 years.  The ruins national park was the first archaeological site in the national park system.

We spent about an hour there as it is impressive that it is still standing, barely.  The site is sort of a long way from anything.  It’s about 15 miles off of highway 10 in the town of Coolidge.   So we have learned a new Trivial Pursuit answer to the question “What Arizona town is the Casa Grande ruins in A. Casa Grande AZ or B. Coolidge AZ?” ”Alex, the answer is, Coolidge AZ!

The current roof was added in 1932.

There are lots of supports holding the ruins together now.

A desert dragonfly.  Not too bad for a phone camera.

I also got a prize for myself while we were out.  I have been thinking that there is a better way to connect to RV park cable than threading on the connectors each time on each end of the cable.  I have never seen this but I envisioned a connector that is threaded on one end and has a push on connection on the other end.  I could just screw the threaded part into the cable and then just push on the connection at the RV and at the park end.  This would save me at least 3 minutes and…most important… AGGRAVATION!

I have been looking for a connector like this for the past couple of weeks at everywhere, except Radio Shack.  Lo and behold, in the middle of the Sonora desert is a f...ing Radio Shack!  This Radio Shack is a combination video store, furniture store and, beauty shop.  All that mattered is that they had exactly what I wanted and for $1.80 each.  How happy am I now!

We finished the day with BBQ chicken and a dip in the pool and hot tub again.

Tomorrow we head further east to Deming New Mexico.  We are going to move quickly for the next 2 stops of 300 miles each.  We are passing up some stuff we would otherwise like to see for another trip in the future.  We want to stay a little while in New Orleans and also go back to our minimum 2-3 night stays.  We feel we need to add some cushion in for later in our trip to Florida.

Stay tuned!