Southern Arizona Fun

As I mentioned in my last post Beverly and I recently went to Wilcox. The first full day was planned as an off road day. So, we used an off road book we got from Beverly's brother and found a few roads that weren't considered very difficult, and headed off. We were on this dirt road, and there was a sign that said, "Road closed" But the road really didn't look that closed. We decided to continue on and see what was ahead that would close the road. Well, we started climbing the mountain and all of a sudden we were in snow. Yes, snow in southern Arizona in February. We thought about turning around, but decided we had a 4x4 vehicle and could keep going. So, we did. The snow at times was 7+ inches deep and in one spot it was more than 9.2 inches because that is the cars clearance and we were scraping the snow. Once we were at the top of the mountain we chose to turn around and hit another trail on the way back.

That trail was more rugged. The brush was scraping the side of the car on both sides the entire time. Well, what could make the day more adventurous you may ask? Well, aparently we hit a nail along this road. I found out when Beverly wanted to take a picture so we stopped. I got out and heard a hissing noise. Sure enough there was a nail in the tire. The area we were in at that point was pretty awful for tire changing, and since the sensor in the car to tell me a tire is low wasn't on we kept driving. Eventually, we found a flat spot and I changed the tire. 12 minutes from stopping to going again. Not too bad for a first time on this car.

After the off roading we passed by Chiricahua National Monument, and decided to go there till it got too dark. That was cool. There were more hoodoos. We saw them in Bryce Canyon in December and there are pictures of those in an earlier blog.


We did some hiking and that was nice.




Beverly took this picture of a tree at Chiricahua National Monument that I didn't know about until I started looking through the pictures. I really liked it and wanted to share it with everyone.










The next day we went to Katchner Caverns. That was really cool to see was. I really like caves/caverns. I find them quote interesting to look at, and it is just another great wonder that God created just right to show us His majesty and forethought. I mean, He knew that people wouldn't discover it fully until the 1970's and then not really be seen by lots of people until the 1990s, so He did everything JUST right to develop its beauty from creation until then.

Our last day we headed back through Tucson so that we could eat at a Mexican place we really like (Rosa's on Fort Lowell and Campbell), and so Beverly could go to Beyond Bread again (we also went on our way down to Wilcox too). While in Tucson we drove around the loop at Saguaro National Park (the one on the east side of Tucson), and have decided that we may venture back there and do some hiking later this year before our national parks pass expires at the end of the year.