We arrived in the Phoenix area after enduring the drive across west Texas and a snippet of southern New Mexico.  It’s actually a beautiful drive with the southwestern mountains framing the desert landscape.  Sunsets were incredible each night.  When we first arrived we were at Lake Pleasant Recreation Area where Barb was dwarfed by a giant cactus. But now, the SaraLinda is parked in the Cave Creek Recreation Area north of Phoenix.

We’ve been having a blast hanging out with our youngest daughter Kelly, taking hikes, going to a few Phoenix sporting events (Suns and Rattlers) and sampling some of the Phoenix cuisine.  We’ve also met up with our dear friends from Nebraska, Ted and Deborah Watson along with their daughter Katherine and her husband Brian.  We had such fun catching up, eating BBQ and hanging out.

Hiking has definitely been a major theme of our time so far in Arizona.  We’ve hiked 6 trails so far and they’ve all had their unique character.  Our first hike was on Wild Burro trail as we were hoping to find… ummmm… wild burros.  Our hike was along the lake and beautiful wildflowers were popping up, especially the yellow poppies.  The big “bloom” is about to happen here and it will be spectacular.  We’re hoping to still be here when it happens.  We saw so many plants almost ready to pop open.

As we left the Wild Burro trail and headed back to our campground, of course, what did Barb see on the side of a hill, THE BURROS!  We stopped, I hiked down the hillside and then along the Beardsley trail toward them to get a picture.  The three in the picture above were giving me the eye so I didn’t venture any closer.  There were at least 16 burros in the group just lazing along, snacking on the plants along the hillside.

While our first Trout Unlimited Top 100 Trout Stream fishing won’t happen until next week, we did find a trout stream about 1.5 hours North near Sedona.   Oak Creek is a small stream flowing through the Oak Creek Canyon south through Sedona and ultimately joining the Verde River.  The drive from Sedona to Flagstaff which parallels Oak Creek is recognized as one of the Top 5 Most Scenic Drives in America according to Rand McNally.  We had a great drive up to the scenic lookout above the canyon and of course, there was snow…. yes snow in Arizona.

While we drove up to the scenic lookout, we were spying for good pullouts so we could fish our way back down to Sedona.  We ended up stopping at three different spots, but the river was blown out from rain and snow melt in the Flagstaff area.  While river conditions made it impossible to wade safely into the water, we still decided to at least wet our lines from the bank.  No fish were caught but we had a great time practicing short casts and high sticking in the narrow, tree lined spots we’d picked.  We finally made it back to Sedona, took a few pictures of the beautiful surroundings there, and headed back to our campsite.

We are excited this week to see a host of friends from our original hometown of Lexington, MO who are coming in for spring training games.  We’ve got more BBQ’s, ball games, hikes and even pickle ball, whatever that is.  And, we have some  fly fishing buddies coming in on Sunday who’ll be with us to kick off our “official” start to year 2 of our River Ramble.  Until next week, its time to….

Ramble On

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