Day 43 Pinetops and Fort Apache 28 April 2015 USA Day 15

Today we went to visit Fort Apache. It was the iconic Fort at the centre of the Apache wars and the American wild west. I know it instantly conjures up images of the F-Troop fort with its wooden outer wall, sentry towers and big swinging wooden gates.
Sorry to disappoint you then, it is more like a modern military base, with a series of buildings in a basic square shape and a large “parade ground in the middle. It was an army fort from 1870 until 1922. The fort has been modified over the years and was a boarding school from 1923 until recent times, for Indian children who had been taken from their parents for their own good. (For those at home, shades of the Stolen Generation!) yes, the history of the US and their indigenous people is as shady as any other, with broken promises, marginalisation and segregation.
The best part of visiting the Fort was the Apache Museum, it was simple, but very interesting. We watched a short (20min) video on their Creation Story, it was very good.
From there we went to have a look at the Kinishba Ruins, a short drive further down the highway. It was ruins of a settlement of the Zuni and Hopi Pueblo Tribes dating back to the 1400’s. We always find it really interesting seeing how other people lived so many years ago. The buildings didn’t look too different to what we have today. A nice finish to our visit was when Yvette spotted a Road Runner running across the road and into the low scrub. Beep beep :-)
We then had a late but very long lunch, so we all decided it was a good idea to have the rest of the afternoon off, and then meet up again at 6 to go and watch the sunset.
We left the motel around 6 and went to the nearby Walnut Creek Lake. It was a magnificent sunset, of reds and oranges, that went on for such a long time compared to home. While we were there we tried doing 4 Geocaches, and were successful with one (thank goodness) It was fun showing John and Yvette all about the “game”.
And that more or less finished our day. Tomorrow we head to Phoenix via the Apache Trail , and the promise of some amazing scenery and views and we are looking forward to catching up with Claire & Ed tomorrow evening.