Arizona's Profilers

May 2006

Fool Hollow State Park, Show Low, Arizona

Campers visited the White Mountains during the first full week of 100 degree temperatures in the Phoenix area.

Weather in the park ranged from really nice to wonderful. A couple of welcome drops of rain occured occasionally.

One morning some of the guys took their hand-held GPS devices out into the woods and went hunting for "ger-caches". They met with success on two of the two tries. For those of you not yet familiar with the sport, it involves someone who has "hidden" a cache of stuff. Usually an old ammo can, or a Tupperware container with various pieces of stuff and a log book. To locate one of these caches, one must first visit the Geocache.com web site to locate one in the nearby area. It doesn’t matter where your nearby area is, someone has already hidden one there. You get the GPS coordinates, load them into your device and it leads you to the spot, within 15 feet. All you have to do is locate where the box is hidden, get it open, check out the contents, add or subtract from the stash, sign the logbook, then put it back where you found it. When you next get to a computer, you log on and report your findings.

The rest of that day was left to acclimate to the altitude and to catch up on each other’s stories of the last month.

Friday morning we went to the Little House Museum in Greer, where the owner, Wink Criegler, gave us her special guided tour of the little houses and the great variety of relics of early Arizona that she has on display. Many of these pieces are old nickelodeons, which she not only keeps in working condition, but plays for visitors on her own nickel. Wink provides a historical word picture of the Lee Valley from the early settlements in 1862 to the present day including stories of her family and the neighboring ranchers, Ben Johnson and John Wayne.

We had visited this museum and the adjacent archeological site, which she is having explored. The amount of change in the eight years is striking. The resident archeologist, Charles, provided a fascinating account of the current state of this dig and of the native Americans that have provided more information about the history of the site.

Following a late lunch in Springerville, at the Blue Bird Café, we had to stop at the "Western Drug" and general store. Here is a step back in time to a store that has everything from pills to fabrics. If they don’t have it, you don’t need it.

Saturday morning allowed for some fishing, last minute shopping and a visit to the local swap meet to select the very best of the inexpensive "must have" trinkets to be found in the White Mountains.

Monday morning came and all too soon we had to pull out to return to real life. Plans were laid in place for the October gathering at Homolovi Ruins State Park in Winslow.

Have a wonderful summer.