Phoenix Day 2: Tonto National Forest, Pontino, The Monestary

There is way too much to write about yesterday! I may have had too much fun...

My friend C picked me up in his big truck at 7am, dogs in the back seat. He took me for a scenic drive in Tonto National Forest. I have never seen terrain such as this. The rocks are so "cliffy" we joked as I struggled to find words to describe the beauty after overusing "wow" and "amazing." The usual 1 hour drive took us two and a half hours to complete as I constantly requested to stop for pictures.

       

















First, quick stop on the side of the road gave us a breath taking view of a forest of cacti in a valley on one side and the sun rising over the mountains in the distance on the other. Life tip: unless you want to be fined $4,000 - $5,000, do not eat/shoot/try to replant a cactus. It takes 100 years for just one arm to grow on these Saguaro cacti. Second stop: the shoe tree. I guess the story behind that goes back to when Indians traveled back and forth from their tribe to society. They left "civilian" clothes in a designated spot to put on going into town and remove when returning to their village. Third quick stop was to peek at Sasquotch.

                 

Next, we reached Roosevelt Lake. It's one of the largest lakes in the country, stretching 28 miles! The chain of lakes are all man made and allow life too exist in the Valley of the Sun. Their main source of water comes from the snow run off from the surrounding mountains. A controlled flow begins at Roosevelt Lake and Roosevelt Dam. You can actually see how short the original dam stood before they built it to its current size in 1911. To get the materials to the dam, they used the narrow and shoulder-less Apache Trail. C drove us along this winding dirt road, passing Apache and Canyon Lakes, very slowly both to allow me to take pictures and to not slip over the edge!

       



















A couple of stops later, we found the perfect spot to have lunch. Along a creek with plenty of shade, room for the dogs to run,  and very few people. C pulled out a grill from the back of his truck and made us some delicious marinated chicken and green bell peppers - not a bad lunch in the middle of the desert! We searched the mountain side through binoculars for big horn sheep, but only found a car that obviously went too fast on the cliff and now is permanently parked on the side of the mountain.

I should also note how rare it is for the desert to be as green as you can see in the photos. C says they have had the perfect amount of rain and the flowers are just a week away from being in full bloom. 

We finally reluctantly left our little spot and returned to the road to drive back through more beautiful cliffs and cacti.  I eventually drifted off, which is expected if you know me at all.

For Happy Hour, we headed with my mom and friends to Postino in Gilbert for half priced glasses of wine and beer. Not much to say other than we had a blast and I highly recommend it!

We ended the night at The Monestary, an inside/outside bar with a band,  dance floor, ping pong tables, and more - all of which were fully utilized by our group.

My flight is about to leave! I need to turn off my phone!  Be back in SF soon :)