Exploring the Apache Trail, Arizona

A few weeks ago we took a drive out on the Apache Trail with some of our dear friends to see the spring desert in bloom.

We made a quick stop at Lost Dutchman State Park to see if there were flowers in bloom there, but we were a bit too early for that area.  The Superstitions Mountians were gorgeously green though.

Spring in the desert is a beautiful thing, especially with all the rain we've had lately.

This is Canyon Lake.  We ate lunch by Apache Lake and also drove beside Roosevelt Lake.  It's surprising how much water is out there in the desert.

We made a quick stop at Tortilla Flat.  Cathy found a nice necklace in the gift shop and we picked up some drinks in the restaurant.  This is the second place I've been this year where the walls are covered with dollar bills. I think it's actually a clever way for the restaurant owners to make a few extra bucks.

Just look at these amazingly delicate flowers that bloom in the desert before it gets hot.  Wow!  Aren't they beautiful?

Then when we got out to take pictures of the flowers we came across this old rusted out can.  It's been a long time since I've seen a can that had to be opened this way, so I just had to take a picture of it.

 And look at this sea of lupines!  Wow!  The roadsides were filled with them.

There were poppies too!  Isn't this a sweet color combination?  Blue, white, and that butterscotch yellow!

Marshall had a bunch of new camera equipment that he was trying out, and I'll bet he got some great photos.

We stopped to see Roosevelt Dam (which I had never been to).  If you look down near the lower right part of the dam, you'll see two pick up trucks to give you an idea of the size of it.  It's massive!

This bridge is just beyond the dam.  Originally the road actually went over the dam, but when they had to raise the height of the it they moved the road.

And since we were running out of daylight we didn't have time to stop at Fish Creek or at Tonto National Monument, so I guess we'll have to plan another trip out there.

All in all it was a perfect day!

Have you ever been there?

Flagstaff Snow Day!

Sometimes my heart just aches to experience the changing of the seasons. After growing up on Ohio, with the full range of sights, sounds, and smells of the season, I just miss it so much that I need to get somewhere out of town. I especially feel the tug in the Fall and Winter. We get our own share of Summer and enough of a feel of Spring that I don't miss that too much.

The last few weeks there have been so many reminders of snowy winter, especially last week with all the snow that they got in northern Arizona. I started thinking about a road trip to Flagstaff probably on Thursday, but the storm continued thru Saturday which made it dangerous to drive up there before last Sunday. So that morning we got up and decided to hit the road.

It was a perfect day! The roads were totally clear, the traffic was light and the sun was shining as we headed up the mountain toward Flagstaff. This was our first glimpse of the snow in the distance.

We drove thru Starbucks in Cottonwood on the way up and Terry picked up an apple fritter with his coffee. He didn't want me to take a picture of him eating it (he's supposed to be watching his carbs, you know.) But I think this is incriminating enough.

Next we started to see snow on the ground by the road...then we really got into snow country! Look how heavily it was covering the trees.

Look at this gorgeous shot (below) of the mountains coming up from the south of Flagstaff.

Not sure if you can tell (below), but we're actually parked in the road. The off and on ramps were plowed, but not the road that they lead to. There was a 6 foot pile of snow in front of the car from the plow blocking the road, so if there was anyone living down there, they wouldn't have any way to get out unless they had a snowmobile or something.

This is the sign that goes across the road. I'm not thinking that anyone's going to get anywhere in that direction on something with wheels.

Here's Terry starting up the hill. You can see that it was thigh high in most places.  Fortunately it was pretty good packing snow and there were a few paths that were packed down enough that we could walk on them without sinking down too deeply. There were a couple of times that I "fell in" and Terry had to pull me out so that my camera wouldn't get in the snow (which happened once). It's so funny because there's just no leverage to push yourself up, since your hands sink down in it too.

It had been so long since we'd been in the snow that we forgot to bring extra pairs of pants.  Fortunately, we didn't get too wet and we did have dry socks, so we were o.k.

It was so sweet to hear the crunch of the snow under our feet!  I love the SOUND of Winter.

And look how amazing the trees were!

We watched showers of snow coming down from the branches very regularly.  Fortunately we weren't beneath any of them.

Isn't it cool that there were icicles hanging from the tree's needles?

When we first got there, the only people around were a couple with their little boy.  I'd guess him to be around 5 and he was having a blast...so were his folks.

Then just before we left we were joined by a young family from Phoenix with 3 boys who had NEVER seen snow!  What an exciting day that must have been for them.  And the littlest one couldn't have been more than 3 years old.  As they were trying to climb the hill he kept sitting down in the snow and his mom kept telling him to stand up.  Then the dad suggested that maybe he couldn't stand up with all the clothes bundling him up.  He was SO adorable!  That's him coming down the hill on the sled all by himself.

It brought back some great memories of our snowy adventures with the kids in years past.

After playing in the snow there for a bit, we started driving toward town then decided to head toward Lake Mary to see if we could get there. Our prospects didn't look good...

Amazing Antelope Canyon Tour - Page, Arizona

So I've been falling behind on posting about travels. I posted some photos on Facebook in September when we were there, but I know everyone isn't on FB, so here are a few of my favorites from Antelope Canyon. I don't know about you, but I've seen pictures of Antelope Canyon for years, but never knew until recently that it was in Arizona!

We had the chance to go there with our friends, Marshall and Cathy on our way to a weekend at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and we were glad we did!

It's an amazing place for photography. The only catch is that in the middle of the day when the lighting is best, there tends to be large numbers of folks in there for their tours. There doesn't really seem to be any limit to the number that they take in at one time.  If there is, then the limit's probably a little too high because there were times when it was really quite crowded in those narrow passageways. I wish I would have taken a picture of the people inside the canyon to give an idea of how crowded it was.

The Canyon (and others like it) are all on the Navajo Indian Reservation near Page, Arizona (see map here) in a somewhat desolate-looking area near the northern border between Arizona and Utah. It's amazing that these canyons are hidden in the desert there.  If someone didn't have photos and directions to the place, there's no way we would have found them.  There's no indication from the highway that these gorgeous formations are anywhere around.  And if you've been to the reservation, you know that the Navajo are not much for permanent structures, so we weren't quite sure where to go to pay and start our tour. After a couple of stops we finally hooked up with a tour run by a woman (Carol Bigthumb) whose grandmother had discovered the canyons back in the 1930s.

This sandy riverbed was the road to the canyon for much of the way. It was very soft deep sand, so kind of strange to ride on. The drivers tried to stay closer to the edge to keep from fish-tailing too much in the soft sand.

The tour guides were generally relatives and we spent most of our time with Gabriel , Carol's son-in-law (in the hat in photo below). Turns out he is a believer and he was a great guide! Very patient in pointing out the various rock formations with names, helping us find the best places to stand for photo ops and even looking at my camera to try to change some settings to get the best shots.  Now I'm sure some photographers would be offended by that, but I thought it was very nice of him to offer to be so helpful.

The guides were also very good at directing traffic throughout the canyon so that photographers could have the "illusion" of being there alone. They would hold up a group of people behind a curve in the canyon so that another group could take pictures of the space with no one in front of them. Some of the photographers got a little pushy, but all in all it went quite smoothly considering the numbers.  I must admit though that as long as you have a tripod, and a camera that can be set to manual, it's really hard to take a bad photo in there. The play of light on the beautiful red/orange rocks is simply amazing!

The first picture is near the beginning of the canyon and gives you an idea of the size of the space and the sandy floor. If you go, please remember to wear closed toed shoes unless you want your feet to be totally dirty when you come out.

The rest of these are pretty much self-explanatory. Let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy!

Chinese Food Tradition at the End of Vacation

We seem to have established a tradition on our last day of vacation before going back to work. We order Chinese take out for dinner, usually from Dragon Palace at 13825 N. 32nd Street (just north of Thunderbird).

After being away from home, we generally don't have a lot of food in the house and don't feel like cooking or shopping, so take-out is the perfect solution.

Some of our favorites at Dragon Palace are Sauteed Happy Family, BBQ Pork Appetizer. The Moo Shu Pork is also very good.

Here's a quick review that I did on Yelp.

Arizona Restaurant Week - Sep 19- 26

Have you heard about Arizona Restaurant Week?

2009 Arizona Restaurant Week will give food lovers (like me) the opportunity to enjoy a prix-fixe, 3 course dinner for $29 per person or $58 for two people at a number of participating high-end Arizona restaurants.

I'd love to participate in this! Looks like there are restaurants participating in Phoenix and Tucson. Here's the list of Phoenix restaurants for this year. There are some great ones that we've been thinking about trying.

One place I'd love to go is Marriott's Camelback Inn. You see, I used to work there as a food server in the late 70's, just after I got out of high school. It was a beautiful 5-star resort back then and has recently been remodeled. I'd love to go back and see what the place looks like after 30 years. This would be a good reason to go and the weather might even be nice enough to sit outside somewhere on the gorgeous grounds.

Anyone up for joining us? We'd need to make reservations and it would have to be sometime between the 19th and 21st.

Drives of a Lifetime!
If you have any interest in traveling, please bookmark the National Geographic Traveler Drives of a Lifetime web page, then start saving your pennies and your vacation days and make plans to visit as many of these as possible.

My friend, Linda mentioned the list to me the other day and I couldn't wait to get home and check it out. Terry and I have subscribed to NG Traveler since the very first magazine was published. It's one that we save and refer to over and over again. An absolute wealth of information! Even if you've never seen it, you can imagine the quality, since it comes from the same publisher as its wonderful yellow-trimmed predecessor National Geographic magazine.

So, now that we've established the quality of the resource, let's take a peek at the list of 50 drives that NGT considers "not to be missed". Since you can obviously read the list for yourself, I'll just highlight a few of the drives that we've had the privilege of enjoying to give you my personal perspective.

British Columbia Drive - (pictured above) Terry and I have covered a fair amount of this drive and would definitely rate it in our top 10. Whistler and Victoria were a couple of the highlights of our trip. We would jump at the chance to return again to the beauty of this area.

Hallowed Ground Virginia - Another area where we've experienced portions of the drive described. I would say that Gettysburg was the highlight of our time in that area. Even if you're not a history buff, this is an amazing place to relive a pivotal point in our nation's history.

Hana Highway - We were thrilled to be able to visit this location just last December and the photo in my header was taken on our helicopter ride of that very highway. It's a gorgeous, lush green slice of Maui with amazing Rainbow Eucalyptus trees, wild roosters and so much more. Here's a link to my post about our Hana Highway trip, although in looking at it again, it really doesn't do it justice at all. Maybe I'll go back sometime and post more pics and details.

Mount Hood, Oregon - We've enjoyed bits and pieces of this drive and can confirm that there is some beautiful countryside to be seen. Even if you only have a small slice of your day, Multnomah Falls (shown here) is well worth a visit any time of year. Here's a link to my post about the time we spent in that area.

New Old West Arizona - Of the places we've visited on this drive, I would say that Bisbee is definitely worth the trip. This eclectic little town is a wonderful variety of history, art, and fun. I was going to link to my post about our visit there in December a few years ago, but I can't believe that I didn't post any pics of the town itself and I have some really fun ones. I'm realizing that my best intentions of posting are often thwarted by the reality of life and limits of time.

Personally, I'd pass on Tombstone, since it's quite touristy, but it all depends on what you're looking for. Kartchner Caverns has been high on our list of places to visit since we moved back to AZ, so someday we'll get there, I'm sure.

O.k., so I've listed 5 of the 50 drives. In looking at the list there are at least 5 more that we've been able to travel, so I'll save those for another day. What a blessing to be able to see so much of God's awesome creation! I look forward to checking a few more of these off our list in the coming years as well. Do you want to come along? We're always looking for traveling companions to enjoy the journey with us.

Glimpses of the Southwest...Day 1 (part 1)

I can't believe it's already Day 3 of our vacation and I haven't posted anything yet. I guess when you see what we've been doing, you'll forgive the delay. We've been busy! Since we covered so much ground on day 1, I'll split it into two posts so as not to overwhelm you.

As mentioned in my previous post, we left the house on Friday morning. I mentioned that we were aiming for 8 am, but later Terry said he'd like to leave earlier, so we were actually targeting 6 am. No problem for me since he usually drives and I can sleep as soon as I get in the car if I need to. In reality after picking up our Starbucks treat for the road and topping off the gas tank, we crossed out of the city limits probably more like 7 am. Not a bad start to the day...it was a long day.

Since I'm sure you don't want a blow by blow account of our 560+ mile drive (on day 1), I'll just give you some glimpses into the highlights of the trip.

Tuba City, AZ - Have you ever heard of Tuba City? I'm guessing that most people haven't. It's part of the Navajo Nation in northeastern AZ. A small town of about 8000 people, and for our household, their biggest claim to fame is the fact that their High School Cross Country Team "kicked the butts" or more acurately "totally dominated" Terry's little Bourgade Catholic High School Team (and many others for that matter) at the Arizona State Cross Country meets. If you look at the high school link above, you'll see just how many times the boys' team has won the State Championship. 19 times since 1970! Quite impressive, I must say! I guess there's not much more to do in Tuba City.

After driving thru the town that brought back so many unfortunate memories for Terry, we were once again in the open desert. Unfortunately, there were road crews working on the highway and we ended up stuck in the middle of a traffic stop for at least half an hour! Yuch! So what did I do? Opened up the sun roof, stood on the seat and took pictures, of course. I didn't want to get out of the car in case traffic started up and I would be stranded in the desert forever.

When we were finally back in motion, we had the privilege of witnessing a summer storm cross right in front of us in the distance. The haze on the right side of this photo is rain. Note the blue sky on the left. Very cool! Lovin' the raindrops kissing the windshield with the blue sky in the background.

Whenever we drive thru the southwest, I'm always in awe of the wide open spaces that are virtually unchanged after hundreds of years. Can you imagine real estate prices around here? I'm not sure I could live in some of these areas, but others are quite gorgeous and welcoming. Talk about a slower pace than the big city...do you think you could handle it?

At 2:30 or so, we came upon a tiny little place called Mexican Hat, Utah - kind of a fun name for a funky town of less than 100 people right on the San Juan river. Here's the town's namesake - THE Mexican Hat rock formation. Can't you just see the little guy peeking out from under the sombrero? Pretty sweet, huh!

And even though we didn't have time to drive thru Monument Valley, we saw some beautiful rock formations all along the drive. In fact, just around the next curve we saw a little known, but equally interesting formation called "Charlie Brown's Shirt" Mountain. Click to enlarge and see the zigzag striations in the rock. (Actually Terry named this formation so you might not find it when you look it up.)

About two and a half hours later we were almost to Arches National Park and came upon this awesome site called Wilson Arch right beside the highway. If you enlarge the photo you'll see the people standing inside the arch. Unfortunately, we were running out of daylight (we thought) so didn't have time to climb up there ourselves. We wanted to get to Arches NP, so just snapped a few pics and moved on.

We'll call this the end to part one, since we covered a lot more ground pictorially in the park. Check back for those tomorrow...still Day 1 - wow!