MONTEZUMA CASTLE AND TUZIGOOT NATIONAL MONUMENTS

On an overcast and relatively cool day we decided to visit the two National Monuments near Cottonwood.  We've been to Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot before but that was before blogging and before I bought "The Official Guide to America's National Parks" including the monuments, preserves, memorials and recreation areas,.  We started off using the small passport book that the park's sell but it fills too quickly and wasn't easy to use.   I enjoy going to the park's visitor center, watching their movie if they have one, browsing through the gift shops and museums.  We have a goal to visit all the Official National Parks (there are 57 of them) and stamp the park's official seal with the date of our visit.  We've visited 26 parks so far and look forward to getting to those other 31, although some might be difficult to get to, but I still think it's a fun goal.

Montezuma Castle is a five-story, 20-room dwelling built by the Southern Sinagua farmers sometime between 1100 and 1300.  It occupies a cliff recess 100 feet above the valley and has an impressive view.

Nice walkway to the ruins - I think the cypress trees are cool

Montezuma Castle

Tuzigoot, the Apache word for "crooked water" is the remnant of a Southern Sinaqua village built between 1000 and 1400.  The original pueblo was two stories high in places with 87 ground-floor rooms.

As with all the National Parks, this museum was interesting

Nice view 

Look closely for the people standing at the highest point which will give you a perspective of the size of this building

Tonight I made enchiladas for dinner and, if I say so myself, they were delicious.  Of course, even with the medium enchilada sauce, Denis though it was too "hot" spicy.  It was easy to make.  I steamed yellow rice in my rice cooker and while it was steaming I mixed in a large bowl some chopped red onions, black beans, diced avocado, grated garlic, cumin, chili powder and cilantro.  Mix that up with the rice and roll it into your corn tortillas.  Take a casserole dish, pour some enchilada sauce in the bottom then place your filled tortillas on top.  I poured more sauce over the top, grated some jalapeno and cheddar blend cheese on top and baked at 400 for about 20 minutes. Yummy.  Let me know if you try the recipe and like it.

We have a pedometer on our phones and have been trying to walk a daily goal of 10,000 steps, that's about 4.5 miles a day.  It's doable if we walk before breakfast and after dinner or if we take an afternoon hike.   I'm not saying it's easy and it's especially difficult to get up off the recliner after dinner but we both feel good after it's all said in done.  We, also, use the "Map my Walk" app on our phone and that's fun because it will log our workouts with date, mileage and a pretty snazzy outline of where you walked.

Well that's what we've been up to and I'm sure glad you stopped in to say hi.