Yesterday, Steve and I drove eastward on the Carefree Highway to explore three places:
Jewel of the Creek Nature Preserve just north of Cave Creek. It is a spring right in the middle of the desert. We brought our walking sticks and hiked around the area. In addition to the creek, there is a cool little cave. Thanks to three big rains, the desert is amazingly green as you can see from the photos below.
Our second stop was to drive farther east to check out Bartlett Reservoir - part of the Verde River. It is waaaaay back in the mountains that separate us from the highway leading up to Payson. I am not sure what I was expecting but I was underwhelmed. The Arizona State Parks system is not as well put-together as Missouri's and they feel the need to charge for EVERYTHING - including just going for a picnic or a hike. But, even with paying, there are no trails or picnic facilities. Just a boat ramp, a marina, and a campground (somewhere - we didn't see it). We ended up just eating our lunch in the car at the top end of the boat ramp parking lot looking out over the lake - basically a bunch of water in the bare desert. I didn't even take a photo!
The final destination was to the Carefree Pumpkin Garden - a repeat of last year only this time in the daylight. With the sun were a whole lot more people but we still managed to enjoy looking at all the crazy pumpkin populated scenarios.
Other highlights of the week include two free meals! Nancy and Fred Richardson, long-time friends from our Virginia days, took us to lunch at Giordanos on Wednesday. And, we had dinner with all the other office missionaries with President and sister Collins at the mission home Thursday night.
Stake Conference was this weekend and, with the visit or Elder Ochoa and Elder Torres, we have a new stake presidency.
I am playing in a Messiah performance in mid-December and I have my first orchestra rehearsal tonight. I am looking forward to it.
Those first photos are doing a good job of convincing me that not all of Arizona is ugly :)
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