More Travels 4--Scottsdale Cools Off

Scottsdale Cools Off

As Andy drove toward Phoenix this morning, I read the Echoes newspaper to him. This park news and visitor guide covered a wide variety of topics relating to the Verde Valley. Most interesting to me was the change in attitude about what became of the ancestral Puebloan and Sinagua peoples. Years ago, when Andy and I toured these areas, we were told that the pre-historic people who lived here and thrived just vanished around 1300. In the newspaper Ranger Case wrote, "...the people who lived here simply moved.

In the afternoon, shadows darkened the ridges of the
Continental range of northern Scottsdale.

Archaeologists are still trying to understand the details, but we do know that population centers began to shift. But the people did not disappear. The descendants of Montezuma Castle and the Verde Valley still live nearby today."


Saguaros dominate the
Scottsdale landscape.

                    I guess the word is assimilation. They moved on and were assimilated into surrounding populations. Perhaps they left the Verde Valley because the land didn't produce as it had in the past or they moved on because disease infected the population of people living in close quarters. No matter what the actual reason, it was time for change.And that's no different from today when a society looks for advancement and progress.
Maybe that's why 220,000 people today volunteered to go on a one-way trip to Mars."Starting now is the best time of year to be in Scottsdale," said Shannon's neighbor when we arrived in town at the home of a close friend.As the sun dipped down behind the Continentals, and the top of the mountain ridge glowed, I had to agree. Temperatures cooled into the 70's. It was a beautiful Arizona evening.