Last Friday we were supposed to be on the school tour for the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Estrella War. SCA are the middle ages/renaissance reenactment people and war is their big gathering of many groups. It’s big huge fun. We went two years ago and had a blast. Tours of a working blacksmith, knights and battles, and ladies dressed up like princesses, what more do you want?
So we got up early, for us, packed the car with a change of clothes for all the kids, sweatshirts, raincoats, lunch, snacks and our wagon to pull it all and drove about 75 minutes southeast of home. Only to find when we got there, that all the school tours had been canceled due to rain. Rain? Seriously? We tried to tell them we didn’t care but they were letting anyone in. The camp was flooded; standing water everywhere and no tours going. I wouldn’t have cared as much if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a) once a year, and b) almost a 3-hour round trip. But our kids are troopers. Total troopers. “They’re not going to let us in? That’s dumb. Are we driving all the way home now? I’m hungry.” “I’m hungry too!” “Me too.”
Well that settled it, breakfast in Florence. So we found a small dinner in near-by Florence for breakfast and started calling friends to see if anyone knew of anything to do nearby. We were already packed, in field trip mode and over an hour for home. We ended up heading to the nearby Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. I’d heard of it but never been. Can I just double that ‘our kids are troopers’ thing? They went from expecting a field trip day with friends seeing knights and swords and pretty ladies looking like princesses (hey, we all have individual interests) to mom and dad and some crumbling mud 
walls. The Casa Grande Ruins definitely are more of a ‘imagine what it was like’ experience. There is one large building left – the great house the area is named for – and mud walls about 2 – 3 feet high that were once 7 – 8 foot high walls with roofs. We looked through the small museum and discussed irrigation and canals, grinding corn and mesquite pods , and various artifacts they had on display then we joined a tour that was already in progress. After a brief explanation that the low lumps of mud were once walls to buildings, we move to the main building. The kids were stellar as the explanations went on and on; it was me, mommy, that decided this was just to slow and grabbed everyone by the hand and slowly wandered away.
Having recently seen the ruins at Chichen Itza in Mexico did help. We discussed ruins, why some survived and others didn’t (more hidden in the jungle vs hot desert and stone vs mud), how the tropics might support more people than the Sonoran desert. Having seen ruins in better shape, it gave this more context than merely being a big falling down mud building. While it was discussion worthy, it actually only takes about 30 – 45 minutes – with museum – to wander. But what impressed me most of all from the trip was the kids. Thinking they were getting knights and jousting and instead getting an old crumbling building, they came through laughing – that is something to be thankful for.
