Millions of years ago, this Arizona desert was covered by the sea… something that’s slightly difficult for me to fathom. Just ask my husband –I bring this up almost every time we’re driving through that dry, desolate stretch of land between Phoenix & Tucson. So after months of bugging, I finally managed to get husband to accompany me to the Arizona Museum of Natural History, where I could go on some more about how Arizona was once undersea.
After figuring out what exactly The Thing is, we continued towards our original destination: Fort Bowie. Fort Bowie was an Army outpost built in 1864 only to be abandoned 30 years later.
A 3-mile round trip hike is the only access to the ruins. It should have been an easy hike. But just when we were starting to think that we’ve gotten used to Arizona weather, we do something like hike those 3 miles in 93°F (34°C) heat. I don’t think we’ll ever get used to the heat here! And it’s not even the hottest month yet!
Unless you’re texting & driving, you can’t miss the 10 or so teaser billboards advertising THE THING? along I-10 just past Benson, AZ. The sparse stretch of desert on I-10 East gives you little else to look at.
After loading up on too much coffee, we pulled off for a pit stop at this trading post just off Exit 322. Once inside, we figured we may as well have a look while we were there… For $1/person, we could finally put our curiosity about THE THING? to rest.
The Grand Canyon attracts about an average of 5 million visitors per year (specifically the North Rim). If you’ve been there in person, then you know that even the most amazing photograph doesn’t do it justice… it is, quite simply, GRAND.
Grand Canyon, North Rim
View the blog post of this photo here: http://leonids.us/arizona/az-ut-road-trip/
However, the Grand Canyon isn’t the only natural wonder in Arizona that offers spectacular views. Check out these beautiful photos that capture the magnificence of Arizona.
It’s about that time when all the “snow birds” start flocking out of southern Arizona because the fast rising temperature makes it unbearable to venture outdoors. To escape the 99° F (37°C) heat, we ventured up to Mount Lemmon where it is always 20° cooler. Plus, we thought it would be a nice to take our “nephew” Rocco on a mini-adventure since we were watching him for the weekend.
The Catalina Highway, which runs through Mount Lemmon, was recently designated as the Sky Island Parkway. Sky islands are “mountains that are isolated by surrounding lowlands of a dramatically different environment”. Basically if you get lost in the Santa Catalina’s, you will want to travel up because that’s where all the life is. At least, according to Bear Grylls. He did an episode in Arizona’s Sky Islands (Season 6, Episode 1 Arizona Sky Islands).
We did it again! Just like last year, we spent a day at the 2012 Arizona Renaissance Festival, one of the highlights of Florence (the other “highlights” of Florence are the prisons). This time around though, I think we may have been more entertained watching the… er, interesting characters there.
Interesting characters leering down at the… other interesting characters coming through the entrance.
For this weekend’s spur of the moment adventure, we traveled down historic Route 66, explored the ghost town of Oatman, AZ , shopped in snowy Prescott then hiked to the summit of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix…. we covered a lot of ground in less than 2 days.
It’s been some time since we’ve been able to get out & have some fun due to time constraints, the flu & injuries but today we managed to make it out to the 150th Anniversary of the Engagement of Picacho Pass.
This post is IMAGE HEAVY.
Continue reading “Battle at Picacho Peak: Civil War Re-Enactment” »
Today called for our 1st hike up Picacho Peak for the year, making it our 5th time to the summit. I’m sure this won’t be our last trip over there… especially since there’s a Civil War re-enactment coming up! HECK YEAH!
We have so many adventures planned for 2012! To kick off the new year, we drove up near Payson, Arizona to cross off another place on our TO DO list, Tonto Natural Bridge (which is situated in a state park).
