The Grand Tour of Arizona

So, some of you who are friends with Ben on Facebook may have seen that we got an unexpected long weekend and were looking for cool things to do. Well, cool things were done by the Pattisons and let me tell you, being a Pattison has been non-stop adventure since day one.

The weekend began by searching for neat places to camp and hike that would be cooler than Tucson and would throw us into fall. Consider it the search for fall. After a few hours looking at national parks/forests and state parks, we decided to go up near Flagstaff to Coconino National Forest. The weather, we were told, would be highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s..aka perfect. So we fulfilled our obligations in Tucson, packed our bags, and headed north. We pulled into the campsite around midnight and it was starting to look like snow was falling. We both expected this to stop since..you know..lows in the 40s. The next morning, I woke up to Ben hitting the roof of the tent and the sound of something sliding off of the tent. That something? Snow. Six-eight inches of snow. Beautiful, amazing, wonderful, cold snow. It was awesome. Jackson didn't want to go outside of the tent (this was his first snow experience..and cold weather experience for that matter) and once outside he didn't want to sit down in the snow. But he also loved it and ran around like a wildman dog. (Now, keep in mind that when we packed for the weekend we packed for minimum of 40s.)  So, our search for fall led us directly into winter. 

This was the winter wonderland that we woke up to. We truthfully wanted to stay, but had no idea how much more snow would be falling and we were woefully unprepared. Plus, Jackson has gotten used to Georgia and Tucson heat and had no idea of what to do in the cold. We therefore decided to head south.

The decision to move south was probably the best idea, but it meant that we had to forget all of the plans we had for the weekend and improvise some new ones. But, as we were determined to spend some nights outside, we found the nearest McDonalds (thanks for all day breakfast and free wifi!) and planned our next night. This led us somewhat closer to Phoenix to the Tonto National Forest. There, we found the weather that we were expecting, some fall colors, a pretty sweet campsite, and signs warning of bear activity recently. We stayed the night, made some chili in the dutch oven, and found out that Jackson is getting more protective in his teenage years. Ben walked away from campsite for a minute to properly dispose of canned corn juice and, when he started walking back, was welcomed by ferocious barks/growls from Jackson! So we felt quite safe, but after reading about the bears and seeing a couple of signs of bear, we decided to move on again after one night.

(finding bear scat)

(morning #2 with weather we were expecting)

After leaving the campsite, we decided to check out the local lake, Lake Roosevelt, and allow Jackson to swim for a bit. We then realized that the Apache Trail started/ended at the lake so we decided to take the scenic way back to Tucson. The Apache Trail is amazing and has some of the best views of the desert mountains that a camera can never fully capture. It was perfect. 

The Apache Trail

So, now you have a readers digest version of our Grand Tour of Arizona! We started the weekend wishing we had significantly more warm clothes and ended wishing we had bathing suits. Arizona is weird.

Until next time!