Camp Verde, AZ - WEEK 8

October 8th – October 14^th 2012

Most of the week, we were just dealing with a practical life. J. worked her three days and then spent other three days seeing doctors. Yearly physical, dentist, document for her next job … really boring.

Reading. Writing. Car wash. Groceries. SNOW (made me really sad). Post office. Laundry. House. … normal life … I saw two cars with Michigan plates and briefly spoke to a guy at the post office, who was from Eastpointe, Michigan.

Sunday morning, around 8 o’clock, we left home and were heading south on freeway 17. It was relatively cold (mornings got pretty chilly in here). Otherwise, the sky was pretty blue and according to forecast, it was supposed to be warm around Camp Verde.

Our first stop was Montezuma Well (part of Montezuma Castle National Monument). It was about 5 miles from freeway (on paved road), there was four cars, including one with Michigan plates. Later, I talked to those people (briefly) and learned, that they lived in Virginia for couple years and just recently moved to Arizona (and intend to stay here). It was small hike uphill towards the natural lake (well). Really impressive view, some hills and semi desert around and then you see big hole and lake on the bottom.

We walked around (it was pretty small site), walked down to the well and were really impress by it. There were some ruins in the well’s walls and as well next to the well. We had to pass two couples, but otherwise it was quiet and peaceful.

There were some information boards around the site so we as well learned something new. The water is apparently constantly feeding the well (with the same temperature) and then it disappears into the swallet. Then it takes about 150 feet and water appears next to Beaver Creek. Native people built the canal (small one) and used water for irrigation. You could not see where water was disappearing or appearing (I looked).

I forgot …. wild life:

It was very interesting site. The weather changed (compared to Flagstaff), it was warm and sunny. There were few clouds, but they were just nice background for picture taking. We obviously saw some cactus as well (it is Arizona). To see really lively green next to the creek was more then interesting. From the top of the well, we could see green string winding through the valley. There were as well quite a few sycamore trees (big ones) with strangely textured bark.

Less then 15 minutes drive to Montezuma Castle. I was saying, that it might be less interesting then Montezuma Well. There was a lot of cars and even some tour buses. (Too many people for out liking.) We looked briefly at visitor’s center and then walked on the paved path towards the Castle. We saw a lot of rock and pretty steep cliffs. I could not see any castle (most of the ruins we seen so far were on the hill). And … there was cavern high in the cliff and there was “the castle”. Amazing. And the small valley had small creek and a lot of trees, so we could see why would someone live here.

And … I was right, the site of Montezuma Well was nicer. When we left the Castle, we were driving towards town of Camp Verde. I forgot to mention, that next to the freeway exist for the Castle, was Cliff house casino. I found it sad (casino, smoke shops or similar sites with Indians motives). There was classic car show, some old tractors and roller derby girls showing off in the parking lot. Otherwise, Camp Verde was pretty boring. We passed through in no time. J. wanted to go back to some specialty stores, so we turned around and parked. The store was closed, so we ended up in nearby junk store.

Driving another 40 miles in pretty country and we were in small town of Strawberry. J. was almost sleeping so she did not take picture of strawberry and the name of the town. Shame on her. There were some houses, vacation houses, the lodge and restaurant … and pretty much nothing else. We drove towards the historical site (old log school).

 Surprisingly it was a lot of going up and down. At the end, we descended into Tonto State Park. After very long time we had to pay entrance fee and drove onto big parking lot. There was a lot of picnic tables and other places just to hang out. It looked pretty flat with hills surrounding the valley. Again, I could not see where the site would be. It was small walk to the first viewpoint. There we realized that we were actually standing on this huge travertine bridge. We did not see that coming. We then took a path leading on the bottom of the bridge.

Unfortunately, there were many people and it was somewhat noisy. It was still incredible view. The small creek was going through the bridge and creating lively green valley. From the top ridge of the bridge was falling small stream of water creating millions of drops and refreshing people walking inside of the bridge. We were climbing the rock and following the path. We could not believe what we saw. It was incredibly beautiful. We learned that we cold walk through and continue next to the creek to the other end of the trail.

Climbing over rocks, jumping over the creek and going up and down … that was the trail. It was awesome. Less people would be nice, but it was not that bad. Then there was mossy waterfall, which was not accessible from our trail. But we took a risk and climb in the water (not a lot of water) to end up on the waterfall viewpoint.

It made our hike shorter and we did not have to walk to the fall and back. And it was pretty refreshing. In no time we were back in the parking lot. Short walk back to the car and we were done. Just before that, we read this sign with some statistics.

And … we were back on the road. We got gasoline in Pine (slightly bigger town next to Strawberry) and then just drove. It was over an hour of pretty nice drive before we stopped at Mormon village. We saw Mormon lodge (we thought it was nice and classy resort), which was not interesting. The Mormon Lake is volatile (the depth is about 10 feet) and quite often is almost completely dry. Nice views of San Francisco peaks.

Flagstaff. We stopped by restaurant/brewery Lumberyard to have late lunch. Average.

Well, at least if is nice to see a lot of light at the end of tunnel.

Flagstaff - FIRST SNOW

Last night it was raining dogs and cats.

It should be good for sleeping, but I did not sleep well.

In the morning, rain was tapering off.

Coming home at seven o'clock, strange objects started to appear on the windshield.

It was snow mixed with rain!!!!

Later in the day, I was coming from the store and looked at Mount Elden.

Whole top of the mountain was hiding in the clouds, but I could still see something unbelievable. 

SNOW!!!!!

ARTICLE

The article from local paper describing part of our Grand Circle route. It is really interesting, but some descriptions are funny (seeing real thing and reading about it makes difference).

Flagstaff, AZ - WEEK 7

October 1^st – October 7^th 2012

On Monday, we were still on the way home from our “Grand Circle” trip. The rest of the day, we just unpacked and relaxed. It was a lot of travel.

On Tuesday, we stayed at home and did pretty much nothing. J. tried to sort out some paperwork for her next assignment, but otherwise, we just took it easy.

On Wednesday, J. worked and I cleaned and washed the car. I do not know if I mentioned that the whole trip, my neck was stiff and hurting. After washing the car (it was really dirty) my neck started hurting again. So I did pretty much nothing for the rest of the day.

On Thursday, we had our wedding anniversary. It has been 9 years since we got married (who would says so). We had easy morning and went to town for lunch. We agreed on one restaurant. It was nice day, sunny and pretty warm.

We had pretty good lunch. It was relatively nice place with pretty good food. J. had salmon and I had pork belly tacos.

After relaxed and good lunch, we drove thru town towards Arizona Snowbowl. It is ski resort about 11 miles from town with elevation about 9500 feet.

It is the same road as driving to Grand Canyon. It is pretty road. We saw many fall colors on our trip and we can see them coming here too. It makes the surroundings really magical. The days are still warm, but mornings are getting somewhat cold. Unfortunately.

 We turned towards the resort and saw sign saying, that skyride is open only on weekends. We still drove up to see how the area looks like. It was 7 mile long road. Pretty road. In the middle or so, we saw big group of young people in same dresses taking some photo. It looked strange. We parked and looked around. It was really beautiful.

We got home and just took it easy, again. In the evening, J. decided to make the cake from the box. She said it was for me (really nice). Did not work too well:

On Friday, J. worked and I did pretty much nothing.

On Saturday, J. was on call, so we stayed home and did pretty much nothing.

On Sunday, we wanted to grab breakfast, so we parked by restaurant/bakery. It looked fine, kind of busy, but I guess that would be good sign. We went in and I did not like that it was ordering by the counter – we left without breakfast. We drove thru town, looking for different place, but we saw only two long lines – no breakfast this morning. Our next destination was farmer’s market. A bit of work to find parking spot. Walk thru the market. J. finally got her breakfast, but she was still hungry.

Another drive to Arizona Snowbowl. It was about 10.30 am. The skyride was open 10-4. The same nice drive, maybe more leaves changed the color. We had to drive a bit on dirt road to park next to the skyride. There was a building and then we saw the ride. I did not like that picture, I do not really enjoy the heights. We bought the tickets (15 dollars each) and got on the ride. Before, we were informed, that it is 38 degrees on the top. Well, nothing we could do, we did not have any extra clothes. So … just ride up.

It was a bit cold. J. was super giddy (partly by views and whole experience, partly by my discomfort). The views were incredible. The skyride started at 9500 feet and ended at 11500 feet. So the 25 minutes ride was incredible. I have to say that I did not feel very comfortable. Along the way, we saw some shoes and clothes. And bra on the tree …. weird.

Obviously, the views, hard to describe:

Finally, after very long ride (25 minutes) we were on the top of the skyride. It was not the top of the mountains, but it was high enough. I have to say, I was glad to stand on the firm ground. The views were incredible. Apparently, they expect first snow in a week (we talked to the ranger), people ski from this place (it looked really steep). She as well said, that at the end of winter season, some people ride down in their underwear (probably how the bra appeared there). And there was no way to walked down. Dow. 

Our picture on the top:

There was small building, few information signs and short trail going a bit higher. There was maybe 16 people, so it was not so bad. The views were unbelievable. It was a bit hazy, but still more then incredible. Including this:

We walked to the higher point, looked around, took some pictures and I was mentally getting ready to get on the bench a ride down. I was not looking forward to that. I was joking, that I will pee my pants (obviously did not happen). And ride down.

At this point, there was so many people riding up, that we were glad we did this early in the day. For some strange reason, it got colder going down and we were glad to be done with it. It was really incredible (and somewhat uncomfortable for me) experience. We had BBQ for lunch in Flagstaff and took the rest of Sunday really easy.