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.
Richard J. Hintin first spoke of Montezuma’s Well in his Handbook to Arizona published in 1878. But there’s evidence someone else beat Richard to writing about it. Mention was made of a pond near a Pueblo, by a Spanish explorer in 1583. Many believe this was a description of Montezuma’s Well and the nearby Montezuma’s castle. This sinkhole into a cavern receives a constant flow of 1,000,000 gallons of water daily. At present, nobody has been able to trace the source of the water that flows into this desert oasis.
Because of their image as a place for travelers to rest, oases have lent their name to many resting or stopping places. One such is the Desert Oasis RV Park and Sand Dune Resort in Idaho. The park is open from May through mid 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 are quite interesting in themselves. They were formed by 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. Take a sweater if you visit.
Other popular recipients of the oasis name are hotels. One such is the Sheraton Desert Oasis in Scottsdale Arizona. It’s located in the Sonoran Desert which provides a beautiful backdrop for the hotel. There is a lot to do there. Explore the desert, or even visit a horse show. But bring plenty of water.
A desert oasis can be a life saver for someone traveling under the hot sun and over the hot sands. It can also be a hotel, park, or rest stop in the modern world.
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