Day 11 - Sedona to Two Guns

From a Mars-like landscape to a meteor event to an abandoned zoo and a political discussion with our hotel manager

We weren't finished with our road trip and one more day awaited us as we headed south to Sedona national park. I had seen images of Sedona before we left the UK and was curious as to how the stark contrast between the dark red stone and vegetation would play out. As I should have been used to by this stage of the trip, that 'wow' word unconsciously slipped out once more. The rising promontories were not only a deep vermillion red but defined equally by the precise strata that the Gods of geology had deemed to lay down, each seemingly detailed one by one. There was sparse greenery above, but clumps of trees and bushes enclosed the lower reaches of every scene as it unfolded before us and changed after each bend in the road.

We left Sedona to visit another natural landmark of a different type, a meteor crater over 4,000 feet across and 560 feet deep that was estimated to have been formed around 5,000 years ago. For some reason Adam and I began a competition to estimate the entrance fee we would be charged given what we had been asked to pay on previous occasions such as Bodie and Manzana. We thought something in the range of $8-$10 was appropriate to peer over a hole and read a bit about how it got there but, as we approached the site, I began to doubt our estimate. Along the road were branded signs about every mile saying that we were only 4 miles from blast off or 2 miles from being amazed. This was beginning to look more like a theme park-priced experience perhaps.

We pulled into the car park and in front of us was a large modern building with a grey coloured and gravel-strewn hill just poking out from behind it. As we got out of the car, we could hear dramatic piped music coming from the direction of the large glass doors and impressive entrance façade. We went in and made our way to one of two glass-fronted ticket booths, and I prepared myself for confirmation of the ticket price for the two of us. I think she said $48 and apologetically, I asked her to repeat the figure. It didn't take us long to decide, in spite of the guided Rim Tour, Discovery Centre and Space Museum, 4D Theatre showing a film called 'Collision!' and Apollo 11 space capsule (actually not 'The' space capsule but one of several used in the astronaut's training), this was over-gilding the crater lily and the price of ostensibly looking into a large hole.

We left regretting that, out of all the research we had done for the entire trip, we had not looked up the website prior to going. However, on our journey to the crater we had spotted a number of derelict buildings in a place signposted as Two Guns, which sounded interesting just from the name. We pulled off to take a closer look and, with the virtual guidebook that is Wikipedia, discovered a fascinating story behind the ruins before us.

The story of Two Guns began in 1878 with an alleged Apache massacre that followed a seemingly ongoing conflict with the Navajo tribe. An Apache raiding party kidnapped three Navajo girls and were then traced to a well-hidden cave where the Navajo lit a fire at the entrance to smoke the inhabitants out. Any Apache that attempted to escape were shot and in this way forty-two perished that day in what became known as the 'Death Cave'.

Fast forward to the 1920s and in 1922 a married couple, the Cundiffs, buy a sizeable piece of the surrounding land and open a store, restaurant and petrol station. In 1925 Harry E Miller arrives and starts an extensive construction project to capitalise on the tourists' interest in the legend of the Death Cave and beauty of the surrounding Diablo Canyon. Calling himself 'Chief Crazy Thunder', Miller erected a zoo, cleaned out the cave and sold off any skulls he found as souvenirs, installed electric light and conducted tours into the cave where he had placed fake artefacts modelled on items found in cave dweller settlements.

A year on and Cundiff and Miller have an argument which ends in Miller shooting and killing Cundiff. Miller is subsequently acquitted of the murder but, perhaps most bizarre, Mrs Cundiff continues to live in Two Guns with Miller still in the settlement and he does not leave until 1930. Various buildings come and go over the next forty years but ultimately the zoo closes, the petrol station suffers a fire in 1971 and Two Guns becomes an abandoned ruin. 

We wandered around the ruins of the zoo where it was still possible to make out the former caged areas and an entrance archway with the faded words 'Mountain Lions' across it. The mouth of the cave was only accessible by scrambling down from a circular rim above it. We got talking with a pair of guys who told us they had gone around 100 feet into the cave. We swapped our knowledge of the history of the site, with them seemingly more aware of the older native American legend than our twentieth century Wikipedia tales. By the time we left, there were probably around a dozen or so people wandering around and we felt that we had witnessed something as interesting as a meteor crater, or possibly more so, because at those prices we wouldn't be finding out.

Back to Flagstaff

Returning to our hotel in Flagstaff, the hotel manager seemed in the mood for a chat on what must have been a quiet day. He started by asking what I felt was a major difference between the USA and UK. I wasn't expecting that and gathered my thoughts before saying that I felt his country had a more 'can do' attitude towards achieving both personal and national goals, it looked more to the future than carrying the legacy of the past. I was quite impressed with that response and he appeared to reflect on that for a moment and then asked about the NHS and the UK's reaction to Covid. It turned out we were talking with Jeff from New Jersey and he had not been vaccinated, was pretty convinced he had contracted the illness at some point but had carried on working because he had to.

We drifted inevitably into politics and he confessed that if there were a Presidential election tomorrow he would vote for Trump. He felt Biden was corrupt because of the allegations surrounding his son Hunter's business affairs and a liar. The seemingly unreconcilable polarisation of American politics then came to the fore as he was critical of the money being spent on the investigation into the January 6th 2021 riot in Washington. He declared it was a long while ago now and the country should move on. By contrast the accusations against President Biden's son had been rumbling on since 2014 and were also still under scrutiny. We mentioned Brexit and although Jeff was aware of what it meant, did not realise that the UK had gone ahead and actually done it. Interesting point to be made there perhaps about American media coverage of European events?

I asked him who he thought were the best American presidents he had lived under and without hesitation he named Clinton, although rolling his eyes, he said he was not so supportive about some of the latter months of his time in office. He thought some more and declared that Regan had been good and also Obama mentioning that he had "done well" under each of these incumbents. I like a New Jersey accent. It seems to bring a home spun and sincere wisdom and philosophy to the conversation. And maybe now Jeff's political thoughts were, in reality, based in economic terms. Trump was okay and you could forgive much because he had helped the US economy to help Jeff. It's a theory.