Besh-Ba-Gowah Ruins, Globe AZ

Saturday, November 25th

Today is our "Turkey Day" and I'm cooking on the barbecue. As there's lots of prep to do, the rest of the crew headed out at 8:30 into Globe to see the Besh-Ba-Gowah museum. (I've seen it 2 years ago anyways.) They toured the exhibit for an hour, and were back at camp well before lunch as Dianne wanted the afternoon to bake. I'd just enough time to get my prep done and have a shower in the parks facilities. They were hot and free. Great for conserving water and grey water space! :)

Besh-Ba-Gowah is a 200 room prehistoric Salado masonry pueblo located atop a broad ridge overlooking Pinal Creek. One mile southwest of the City of Globe, Arizona, stand the ruins of the ancient Salado people who occupied the site nearly 800 years ago.This ancient village is known today as Besh Ba Gowah. The term was originally given by the Apaches to the early settlement of Globe. Roughly translated, the term means “place of metal.” The partially restored ruins, along with the adjacent museum provide a fascinating glimpse at the lifestyle of the people who occupied this region over two centuries before Columbus discovered the “New World.”Besh Ba Gowah offers visitors a chance to explore the ruins, a museum which houses a large collection of Salado pottery and artifacts, botanical gardens, and a gift shop.

And Ray will take the narration from here:

My favorite picture of the day.

Above is the view of the ruins from the parking lot leading to the museum. There's a wonderful desert garden surrounding the ruins, pic below.

First stop is the museum displaying artifacts found during the restoration project.

The layout of the village.

Foods consumed by the Salado, grown at the museum garden.

Cotton woven material

Lovely pottery

Woven containers

Then off to see the site.

In the layout above you see the trail from the bottom right (museum) and then the wide line leading to the main courtyard.  This was the only entrance to the facility in the day. The two pics below show this passage, which would've been covered and dark back then.

We first walked the area to the left of the passage.

And then into the main building.

Roof structure

Typical family "apartment"

View of the second floor ceiling

Then out the other side to the remainder of the site.

This displays the four foundation types used in construction

Picture by Dianne

The sign says it all!

Monarchs

After they got back, everyone was "holed up" in their respective coaches working on their pictures and blogs for a good part of the afternoon. I put the turkey on the barbeque about 3:30 pm and everyone came outside and joined me.

Cheers!

About 4:30 Steve started the fire. I monitored our turkey in the barbecue.



We sat down around 5:45 for our Thanksgiving turkey dinner  with mashed spuds, dressing, roasted asparagus and homemade "turkey jam". Dianne made a wonderful pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

I took me a week to find a small enough turkey to cook. Imagine my surprise when I opened the package to find that both the wings and legs had been chopped off and it was only the breast! Fortunately it turned out nice and moist.

We served up inside to keep the food warm and then went back outside to eat.

Very warm out and a beautiful evening, although a little noisy with all of the surrounding generators. At 7 pm we all called it a night. Another fabulous day.