Helen FieldsScience Writer

The best vacation ever included a stop by Montezuma Castle, a cliff dwelling just off the highway between Phoenix and Flagstaff. Our original plan for the day was to take the scenic route and stop by this place. But, thanks to Arizona’s miserable finances, it’s only open on weekends. We found this out when we drove up to the entrance. So, Tonto Natural Bridge will have to wait for another time. Fortunately, Montezuma Castle was there to heal our bruised tourism plans:

The cliff dwelling was occupied from A.D. 1100-ish to about 1400. It has nothing to do with Montezuma – early settlers connected it to the Aztecs (incorrectly) (surprise). The two different colors of plaster on the dwelling are because carpenter bees got in there and they had to refinish part of it a few years ago.

Nice ranger-type people (they were volunteers) kept stopping by and asking if we had questions – Kate wondered if it was because we were the only people there who weren’t either retired or dragging young children around. And of course we had questions. Hello, we’re reporters. (How come it’s two different colors? Where’d they get water? What are those holes? Are the swallows here this time of year? Who are you? What’s that organization? Do you like it?)

It’s a lovely spot – not too hot on a Wednesday in October, with nice trees giving shade and a stream for water a few feet down the valley. The only sounds were the wind in the trees, some birds…and this dumb diorama thing that was about 30 feet away. Ok, it was a perfectly nice diorama. I love the little people weaving and carrying pottery and stuff. But it also had a recorded narration that you could push a button and listen to, so the whole time we were sitting there looking at the cliff dwelling, we were also listening to some man go mumble mumble worple worple worp mumble in the background. Annoying.