Admit it, you read the title and thought we went to jail.
Or, perhaps I am pushing hard on an old-timey joke that isn't the slightest bit funny
because no one calls jail "the big house" anymore. Well, I just did! Anywho, now that
I've got you all excited about a jail story, we didn't go to jail.
We went to Casa Grande: The Big House.
It's not just a small town between Tucson and Phoenix, it's a real thing.
In fact! The actual Casa Grande Ruins aren't even in the town Casa Grande, thy're in Coolidge.
Geography facts folks! What doesn't this blog have to offer?
Readers of the Boswell House Blog know full well that us Boswells love a good road trip.
Inspired by that, I got Dylan a book for Valentine's 2014 called "Weird Arizona."
It's a great book! These guys started with one called "Weird America" and then started a whole franchise going state by state because the stories just kept rolling in. When we cracked open our copy of Weird AZ we realized that we've been some rather unobservant Arizonans. Neither of us had ever been to see those ruins! They're hundreds of years old, an amazing look at how life used to be and they're really, really cool!
What took us so long?
There it is folks. The Big House. Pretty amazing, right?
Yes, I took pictures of the plaques. See, this is how archaeologists believe The Big House once functioned
LOTS of photo ops at this place!
Check out these:
On either side of the structure they had these windows, one for solstice suns, the other for eclipses (at least that's the tid bits I remember, don't let your kids write their history reports based on my blog, okay?)
They had these tiny little doorways! On the big house, they were up off the ground.
In some of the surrounding houses, they were ground level - but still tiny.
See Dylan for size comparison.
Tiny doorways aside, the structures really are a sight to be seen.
Here's another plaque, showing how archaeologists believe this compound was set up in its hay day
Tell me that isn't awesome! Okay, so maybe I'm a giant nerd - but we had a great time.
When we got home, I wrote in our Weird AZ book on the Casa Grande page about our trip,
sort of like a yearbook. We've decided anywhere we go in
AZ from now on, will get another yearbook style excerpt. I'm looking forward to those!
What's even more amazing about our trip to Casa Grande? That we went up on Saturday, so then when we were home on Sunday - we were actually productive around here! :D
Maybe we were inspired by our industrious ancestors...
We started off the day with yard work, bringing the front yard back up to shape, making sure the watering systems work, all of that fun stuff. I didn't take any pictures. If you've seen one "I sprayed for weeds!" post, you've seen them all. (But hey, if I need content later - believe you me - we'll see it again!)
After yardwork, we ran errands and even hit up the street fair so that Dylan could get some photos for a project that he's working on. Score. But wait! There's more! That evening, I finished setting up the master bathroom.
You saw that correctly. Finished. Master. Bathroom.
I love how it has that angelic glow there
I turned the flash on so you can see the colors - oooh, aaaaah!
Towels! Glorious towels we can use! While they hang on their sweet, sweet double rack!
Yes!!!
Of course, it was only a matter of time before little Peggy had to crash the party
And then she got cozy in the sink
Mini road trip. Productivity. Cats bein' cute.
Do you really need any more than that?
