We arrived in Arizon yesterday for the Literacy Research Association and found time in the schedule to visit some of the many national park units in the Phoenix area. This morning we headed northeast to the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. The NPS website invited us to: "Explore the history and stories of an extended network of communities and irrigation canals. An Ancestral Sonoran Desert People's farming community and "Great House" are preserved at Casa Grande Ruins. Whether the Casa Grande was a gathering place for the Desert People or simply a waypoint marker in an extensive system of canals and trading partners is but part of the story of the Ruins."
This site was actually more interesting than expected. There was a small museum section of the visitor's center that provided an excellent overview of archelogists analysis of the area over various different time periods. There were models and maps and even a whole section of touchable items. Libbry really liked those; Catherine and I liked the rest!
We then ventured out to the archeological site and one of the volunteers started us off with some deeper explanations of the site and a wonderful story of how archeologists found another site close by (behind the Wal-Mart!) using LIDAR and found 700-800 houses that they are thinking was the residential part of this community. We also learned a lot about the cotton grown here over the millenia up until now. 
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