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Desert Oasis

February 17, 2009

Any desert oasis is a place of refuge in the middle of an inhospitable land. There might be a pond that captures water after a rain, or something a bit more permanent like Montezuma’s Well in Arizona. People have that image from the movies of a hallucination giving travelers false hope.

Desert Oasis

In 1878 the Handbook to Arizona, written by Richard J. Hinton, first brought Montezuma’s Well to the public mind. However, someone else wrote about it a long time before that. In 1583 a Spaniard named Antonio de Espejo wrote of ditch running from a pond to an abandoned pueblo. Many think he was describing Montezuma’s Well and Montezuma’s Castle. 1,000,000 gallons of water flows into this well each day. Nobody knows where all this water comes from in the first place.

Because of their image as a place for travelers to rest, oases have lent their name to many resting or stopping places. The Desert Oasis RV Park and Sand Dune Resort is one of these. This park is only open from May through September. It has 72 campsites and miles and miles of sand dunes where people dune ride, snowmobile in the winter and explore the many caves found near the property.

The caves near the Desert Oasis RV Park have a remarkable origin. They are tubes formed from cooling lava. They snake underground for miles and miles, going wherever the lava was able to flow. A great amount of insulation is provided by lava. That keeps the caves cool even in the summer. It’s a good idea to wear a jacket there.

Oasis is also a popular name for hotels. One of these is in Scottsdale, Arizona – the Sheraton Desert Oasis. The Sonaran desert is its home. It’s hardly bereft of life. Explore the desert, or even visit a horse show. But bring plenty of water.

Desert Oasis

So it seems an oasis can be many different things.

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