We reluctantly left our desert campground in Tucson Mountain Park and headed west.  We saw more farmland, mainly corn and cotton as we traveled toward Casa Grande.  We arrived at our new home, an RV resort, far different from our previous desert home.  This resort is now filled with snowbirds, many from Canada who have come down for 6 months.  There are many activities to chose from to keep everyone busy, and we have enjoyed getting to know some of them by attending a church service and playing Mexican Train dominoes two evenings.  We realized that if we ever decide to winter in one place for several months, these kinds of resorts can keep us very busy and active.  Sunday night they had a Christmas parade with a float and

many people 

decorated their golf carts and had them in the parade.  The Christmas spirit was contagious and we decorated our rig too!  

Monday we drove to Casa Grande Ruins, from which the city got its name.  The Casa Grande Ruins National Monument has the remains of a prehistoric Hohokam farming village where the Hohokam people lived from 1300-1400 AD.  The main building called Casa Grande, was four stories high, 60 feet long, contains nearly 3,000 tons of caliche mud, and is the largest known structure of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert.  

model of the Casa Grande

The Hohokam people are referred to as the “First Masters of the American Desert”.  Shortly after the time of Christ, these people became the first farmers of the American Southwest.  They were influenced by the great Mexican civilizations to the south and using stone age tools and the strength of their backs, they dug hundreds of miles of canals across the desert.  One interesting thing was that the holes in the upper walls aligns with the sun and moon, indicating that the people would study the positions of celestial objects and use that for planting, harvesting and celebrations.   At one time the village was surrounded by a 7 foot wall.   Time, weather, and vandalism has harmed the structure and the park service put a roof over the big structure to try to prevent the destruction from weather.  No one knows what happened to the Hohokam people, but among various theories are that floods destroyed the canals they built for water and then a drought forced them to move.

A Jesuit missionary discovered the ruins in 1694 and between then and 1889, visitors vandalized the area. In 1889 Congress took action to protect the ruins and wooden beams and steel rods were put in to reinforce the walls.  In 1892 it was designated as a natural preserve and in 1932 the roof was added to protect the structure from weather.

On one of our days in Casa Grande we drove thirty minutes to Chandler, Arizona to ride on the Paseo bike trail, a wonderful paved trail that runs along a golf course and through neighborhoods.  It was a great day for biking! 

We enjoyed our time in Casa Grande, and like Tucson, think it would be a nice place to return to someday.