A Visit From Flat Stanley!

Thanks to our niece, Cora, we had a visitor for Christmas: Flat Stanley!
For those of you who don't know his story, a bulletin board fell on him and flattened him!  Now he can travel in envelopes.  It must be uncomfortable, but it's cheap, so he travels a lot and learns from his travels.  He came to Arizona to learn about the desert!

We took some pictures in front of our surprising GOLD Christmas tree.  Stanley was tickling Greg, so Greg was making silly faces!

Stanley, why are you poking him?!

Since he was here for Christmas, he helped me make Christmas cookies.  We made Spritz cookies, a special thing our family has made for a long time.  These cookies are made by pushing the dough through a cookie press (thus the name; spritzen = to squirt in German!)  We decided to make some tree shaped cookies and some wreath shaped cookies.

Most of the cookies turned out great, but some didn't!

Here's Greg using the cookie press and creating some sort of ocopus-like monster cookie!

Sometimes the dough comes out WEIRD!

Stanley was proud of his work making Spritz. 

The day after Christmas, we all decided to go for a hike.  Arizona is warm even in the winter, and it's almost always sunny. 

Don't worry; Stanley always wears a seatbelt!

Along the way, we stopped at the weirdest golf course!  It's called Snakehole Golf, and it has no grass, only dirt and scraggly bushes!

Stanley's Dad enjoys playing golf, but Stanley said he didn't think his Dad would enjoy this golf course.

Stanley decided he wanted to ride in my backpack.

Here we are at the trailhead (that's where the hike starts).  That's Lost Dutchman State Park in the background.  We were in the Superstition Mountain range.

The area we hiked sadly had been affected by the wildfires that took place this past summer.  Here's an article about how this trail (First Water) fell prey to wildfire, though firefighters were able to save nearby Lost Dutchman State Park.  The fire is believed to have been started by lightning.  Without the protective ground cover (plants), there's nothing to stop any heavy rain from rushing down the (not very absorbent) dirt hills and gathering speed and depth to make big problems.

The loose debris (things like plant pieces, rocks that got weakened by the fire, etc.) is also a problem sometimes.  These things are especially dangerous if a flash flood occurs because the water can cause something heavy to smash a person or hit a person on the head. 

It was sad to see the burned plants, especially the beautiful cacti.  Saguaros can take over 100 years to grow.  This area of the desert will be recovering for a long, long time.

A charred cholla:

Burned desert:

Stanley saw huge saguaros ("suh-WAR-os") and liked how their arms reach toward the sky.  Saguaros take hundreds of years to grow!


Here's a nice healthy saguaro.  Look at the SPIKES!  The pattern of the spines is artistic and beautiful.

Here's how a healthy cholla looks.  Some of the bits fall off these cacti, the spikes bounce off a passing walker's foot, and it looks as if the cactus babies are jumping!  That is why these cacti are sometimes known as jumping cacti.

Cholla are very spiky!  The spikes are yellow and they kind of glow in the sunshine.

Though we warned him about the spikes, Stanley couldn't resist jumping right out of my backpack into a cholla!  Here's a hint: if you go walking in the desert, take along some duct tape.  If you get spikes in you (Stanley got some in his butt!), put duct tape over the area and then pull it off really quickly.  The duct tape gets out even the tiny spikes that you can't see with your eyes.

Silly Stanley!

We walked more through the desert and enjoyed the pretty rock formations and clear blue sky.  In the pass between the hills in back of me and Stanley, you can see Four Peaks, a famous mountain here.  It even has a brewery named after it!

Can you see Greg walking through the desert?  He looks very small compared to the huge rocks!

That's a BIG boulder!

Look at that beautiful view!

This was where we stopped and decided to turn around.  My ankle is not doing great, and it was getting tired out and a bit sore.

Stanley enjoyed the desert!



Stanley will be headed back to Minnesota soon, but he had a great time and we enjoyed having him visit!

See you later, Stanley!  Have a safe trip home!

Chilly Waterfall Hike

 

A while back, Greg and I went for a hike up north.  This one is near Payson and I discovered it a few months ago when it was still HOT outside.  There's a lot of water and there are WATERFALLS!

First, of course, we needed to give Clarabelle some fuel so she could make it up the mountains.  The gas station has a pretty view of these palm trees and the beautiful clear blue sky.

Don't worry: there are plenty of runaway truck ramps in case your truck tries to run away!

The views are beautiful in spite of the burned areas.

It's a good idea to stop at the gas station in Payson for a potty break because the "toilet" at the trailhead is a hole in the ground with a toilet seat on it.  Ew.  But useful when necessary.

That water tower up on the hill says "Payson".

There were interesting and slightly nerve-wracking signs up warning us about BEARS (we did NOT feed them) . . . 

and flash floods.  My Physical Therapist told me something about a whole family having died, so I looked it up, and it was almost true.  Most of the members of a large hiking party did die up there a few years ago during a flash flood.  So now ANY RAIN and I will be climbing up as high as I can get to escape the swell of scary water and tree branches that come rushing down the gorge.  But that didn't need to happen on this day; we just had a nice happy hike.

They also reminded us to make sure all fires were OUT.  Huge swaths of desert burned this past summer.  Seeing the dead and charred saguaros is very sad; they take hundreds of years to grow!  We did NOT start a fire.

The parking lot was almost empty, and the slot for payment was closed up.  The creek is RIGHT THERE off the parking lot!

There was a place for information, but there was no information!

We walked a bit and came to the gorge and the river!

I guess some people rappel here . . . ?

I wouldn't want to.

The water was beautiful and clear.

We climbed up farther.

Gorge-eous!

Some little puddles were frozen solid!

Parts of the river were FROZEN!

Look at the end of the stick, covered in ice!

To get to the bigger waterfall at the end of the trail, we needed to cross the river:

Should I cross here?  Um . . . no.

Greg crossed a little further upstream, and I decided his way was better on the way back.

Then there's a plain filled with criss-crossing little streams.  This day, many of them were partially frozen!

We found friends in amongst the trees!

They walked away, slowly munching on dry grasses, when they saw us.

The leaves had fallen and the scenery was autumnal.

There's the tallest waterfall!

It flowed into a bit of a small lake.

The icicles made us happy!  We don't see them very often!

The water frozen in intricate patterns.

Here's Greg being weird:

And here I am being weird!

At this point we were getting pretty chilly, so we decided to head back.

I also decided to switch hats so my ears would be warmer!

On the way out, we saw a sign . . . 

It didn't have anything on it!

Here's a tree with a wonderful pretty root structure:

And then we crossed the river again.

We enjoyed a scenic drive home and then dinner with cat snuggles.

On the way home, we saw the Weaver's Needle!

Greg got a great shot of it:

What a lovely day!