Come visit Old Town Cottonwood with us.

We camp in this area every spring when leaving our winter home because there is so much to visit in the area.  A little known treasure is Old Town Cottonwood - called the "Biggest Little Town in Arizona".  It was founded in1885 and still has much of the original architecture.

We love to walk along the sidewalks of Old Town to poke in and out of the many antique shops and gift shops as well as the many restaurants and wineries.

We stopped for lunch at the Red Rooster in downtown and loved the yummy food which is all made fresh - from soup to sandwiches plus wonderful cheese platters to sample some of our favorite European cheeses.

As with all of Old Town - the signage and decorations are very funky.

First time in the RobinArt gift shop was a treat - beautiful glass creations.

These pottery facial masks reminded me of my friend Mitzi's beautiful art masks.

I found this beautiful 'Dream Catcher' made of found sea glass which I love.

One of the most colorful shops was this great metal shop that had beautiful creations for your garden - and many were painted great bold colors.

How about a birdhouse for your garden.

And of course no trip to Old Town would be complete without a little wine tasting.

The Arizona Stronghold Winery gave us these cute tasting glasses when we ordered a tasting 'flight' of white and red wines.

This winery has a beautiful label and wonderful big glasses.  The Cabs were smooth and the 'Tazi' white was a nice blend of white wines that we enjoyed.

To see our other Blog - www.PhotographyByPearl.Blogspot.com

Traveling around the Sedona area this week

The Zaki Gordon Film Institute in Sedona held a Short Film Festival this weekend.  Our group attended because we knew that one particular film was a Must See!  "Bullied to Silence" 

The Sedona Center for Arts & Technology is a wonderful learning institute for creative young people and adults that have courses on Film making, Writing, Acting and more.

We enjoyed many of the short films - but the movie that moved us the most was a very powerful film called "Bullied to Silence".  This film covers the epidemic problem of Bullying that is going on in this country - to watch a 'trailer' of the film go to:  http://vimeo.com/28750301  or http://bulliedtosilence.com/trailer.html 

Today we visited the V Bar V Heritage Site near Sedona, AZ.  This original beautiful fieldstone fireplace which stands about 20ft high is almost all that's left of the original ranch that stood here.

This is one of the few gates and fences that are still on the site that was originally a ranch. But now this site is the largest known Petroglyph Rock Art Site in the Verde Valley, as well as one of the best preserved. 

From the original ranch site we walked along well marked paths .

The path to the Petroglyphs was very pleasant with many beautiful trees and flowers.

The walk was a little less than a mile into the Rock Art site.

The first wall we saw had more than 1000 beautiful petroglyphs.
The Sinagua people created these images between A.D. 900-1300.

We were very fortunate to have a wonderful guide who was part of the Verde Valley Archaeological Society at this site.  The interpretive tour was so important in understanding what the art may have meant and the traditions of the people of that time.   Here he tells us about how important the 'cracks' in the rocks were to all Native Americans.

They believed that spirits used the cracks to travel from other worlds to their world.

Here you see Cheryl viewing the side of the wall that had most of the art about women, birthing and families.

Here our guide points out the petroglyphs that represented cranes. He said that there were over 400 Petroglyph sites in the Verde Valley area and he has visited about 100 of them - and this was the only site that had the cranes.

The yellow that you see is lichen a form of mold that is growing on the walls of this rock art.  Because of the many trees planted close to the rocks providing shade and moisture to the area.

The guide told us that this 'figure' that seemed wedged between two rock areas was carved to resemble a person with the body representing the 7 peaks of the San Francisco mountains.  And the crack in these rocks providing the avenue for the energy of the mountains to come to the people here.

Here is a frontal view of this same crack and carving among the petroglyphs.

Here is a closer view of a portion of the rock art.

And an even closer view of the rock art.

Here is a good view of the cranes as well as the Shaman on the left.  If you double click on it you can make out more of the carvings.  Identify dogs, horses, plantings and vegetation. 

This rock art represents migration - look at the circular pattern to the rock art.

Here is a closer look at the circular rock art representing migration.

And of course sadly - with all this beautiful art - among the petroglyphs are some graffiti that was added by some idiots....

Visiting the Palatki Ruins near Sedona, AZ

Armed with sunscreen, water and hats to shade our faces - our group headed off to the Palatki Ruins. Left to right - Cheryl, Linda, Pearl, Flo, Barb, Co, Susan, and Anne. 
The Palatki Ruins and Rock Art are off the beaten path just outside Sedona and well worth the historic experience.  

There are actually two sites. One is the actual ruins of the Sinaqua Cliff Dwellers and the other is over 1,000 petroglyphs and pictographs carved and painted into the rocks and formations by prehistoric natives that occupied the area during various times in ancient history.

We found these remains of a dwelling on one of the paths that we took.

Palatki is a Hopi Indian word meaning “red house”. The cliff dwelling was built by the Sinaqua Indians (Spanish for “without water”) about 1150 and was mysteriously abandoned at about 1300.

Our Guide for the Ruins was Charlie - he was a wealth of information telling us many historical tidbits of the ancient dwellers here.  He even had binoculars for those of us who forgot ours so that we could get a closer look at the ruins.

The Palatki Ruins are hidden behind some trees and if you didn’t know the dwelling was there, it would be easy to miss.  Visitors used to be able to walk right up to the ruins - but with the rocks starting to crumble above, it's too dangerous for the park to let us climb any closer.  So even with our telephoto lenses this was the best we could do for photos. 

 According to the Ranger and evidenced by the ceiling heights of the dwelling, the Sinaquas were short people of about 5 1/2 feet tall.  Unlike our kids today that stand over 6ft tall.....

We saw lots of beautiful flowering cactus along our hikes - the 90 degree weather this time of year pushes those lovely blooms right out. 

We hiked up to the Rock Art site and found another Guide who pointed out many Pictographs.

The Rock Art site is nearby the cliff dwelling ruins, but the two sites are not related to each other. The pictographs and petroglyphs on the wall of the red cliffs date back to 6,000 years ago, thousands of years before the Sinaqua built the cliff dwelling. The black art is made with charcoal, mixed with organic binders such as blood or fruit juice,

The white rock art is made with kaolin clay and includes ancient pictorial writings left by numerous native prehistoric people that preceded the Sinaquas. There are even writings and names carved into the rocks by settlers in the area dated in the 1880s.

Some of the  drawings were clay, etchings made by Navajo on hallucinogens, holes bored in by buckshot, and a wide array of things. Pretty neat when you've got a ranger there explaining it to you.

All of the Rock Art had meanings - and the Ranger said no one was really sure what they meant - they just guessed that many of the drawings were of the everyday things they saw and experienced - like falling rain here.

The Ranger said that ancestors of Native American's lived in the area from around 1150 to 1300 CE. Some of the petroglyphs are estimated to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old and came from the more archaic cultures. 

Using pigments made from kaolin clay (white), pulverized hematite (red), powdered limonite (yellow) or charcoal (black), mixed with organic binders such as blood or fruit juice, the residents of the area produced a wide variety of abstract symbols, as well as representations of themselves and animals.

The views of the red rocks here at Palatki against the blue skies were lovely.

After a great day of hiking we visited the famous Hog Wild a restaurant known for their delicious BBQ Ribs, Pork and Chicken.  Our friends Susan and Anne share a 'sampler platter' with sweet potato fries.

Sorry that this photos is a bit blurry - I took it with my phone and I think my hand shook .... but you can see we are all enjoying the BBQ treats....