Heading for Higher Elevation

Goodbye McDowell Mountain Park.  Farewell.  After riding three days, we could no longer take the heat.  Going to Fountain Hills in April is always a gamble.  After yesterday afternoon, we decided to bail and head north.  It was not on the itinerary that we have been putting together, it was just a get out of the heat and gain altitude decision.

We are now in Winslow, AZ, made famous by the Glenn Frey song about standing on the corner.  That's pretty much what Winslow has going for it.
We're staying at the campground in Homolovi State Park, which has two ancestral Puebloan ruins open to the public.  The sites were vandalized over the years, and not too much is left to see.  It was a huge place its glory, in the 1200s to 1400s.  The park ranger called it a "planned community." 
We did a fly by on Homolovi II, which is the larger of the two sites open to the public.  This is what the rooms looked like.

There are still pottery shards on the ground.  It's nice that people leave them there and don't scavenge.

A Kiva.  These were the heart and soul of the community.

The San Fransisco Peaks, way off in the distance.

It's much cooler and cloudy.  Earlier it was really windy, but it has died off to nothing. We'll probably go look at something else tomorrow morning before heading down the road to Holbrook.