Cave Creek, Arizona

When you hear the word Cave Creek, what words come to mind? Cowboys, shopping, food, or maybe even stagecoach? Well, all of the above and much much more. I had the pleasure of visiting the town of Cave Creek many times growing up and still enjoy it today. Just this past week my sister and I decided to have lunch at the famous Satisfied Frog restaurant and bar. To our dismay, and due to financial hardship a couple years back, it was taken over by the Silver Spur Saloon & Eatery which happend to be the very restaurant we were eating at. The food was great, and the restaurant is surrounded by local merchants selling all kind of neat items such as t-shirts, hot sauce, and jewelry. After lunch we did some shopping around the area and took some pictures. With a little research of it's history here is what I found:

The town of Cave Creek is actually named after Cave Creek which still flows today. Indian settlers like the Hohokam, and the Apaches lived among the creek and grew crops. The history of permanent settlers goes back to the mid to late 1800's. The gold rush is what brought a lot of settlers to this area. Soon saloons, restaurants,a post office, and a school were built. During the 1930's and 1940's, with the construction of Bartlett Dam and Horseshoe Dam, this brought more and more activity to the area as well as electricity and telephone. In 1952 the road was paved all the way to Phoenix. Cave Creek has nearly 30K or more residents which also make up a great majority of merchants like Rose who we met manning a small indoor shop full of goods such as jewelry, ceramics, and a stuffed Javelina named Suzy. Not sure she was for sale though. Please get out and visit the town of Cave Creek. It is so full of rich south western heritage. From antique stores, to saloons, to fine dining and even western dancing, Cave Creek has it all. Y'all come down and visit ya hear!

For more information on Cave Creek visit www.cavecreek.org

Washington Park Payson, AZ Labor Day 2010

If you've ever heard of Houston Mesa Rd. it is located just off of Hwy 87 just as you pass through Payson, AZ to the right. If you have ever traveled through the beautiful mogollon rim up near Payson, you will be in for a treat when you travel this somewhat unknown but well traveled road. Just as you turn east on HMR,soon you will see the HM campground. This delightful campground has many camp sites,showers,flush toilets, picnic tables, and drinking water. The good news is, that it accepts reservations, the bad news is, there are no hookups. The next site you will encounter is the Shoofly Ruins. This is an ancient Indian dwelling that existed around 1000 to 1250 a.d. All that is left are a few broken down walls which has the appearance of a cluster of rocks. This is a self guided area, and is quite beautiful. Stop in, read the interpretive signs and make an experience of it. The next encounter you will find along HMR, is Water Wheel Campsite. Unfortunately due to a man made fire, this site is currently closed. Traveling forward along HMR FR199,venture on to FR64 until you meet up with a quaint little town called whispering Pines. If you continue on and drive onto FR32, you will enter Washington Park. When traveling along WP you will see many areas where you can disperse camp. At the end of the road, you will meet up with a couple of hiking spots like the Highline Trail, and Colonel Devin Trail. Not far from these trail heads, is where we set up camp. The spaces are large enough for RVs. Just behind us is what I believe is the Bonita Creek. We spent a lot of time down there and hiking through it. The dogs just loved it. Much to our delight, we found blackberry bushes all along the river. They were so delicious.The surrounding pine trees are enormous and some are believed to be over 200 years old. Don't just take my word for it, please get out and explore what nature has provided. Arizona is full of some spectacular places. Remember to always pack out what you pack in. Leave as little impact as possible, and never destroy wildlife. We are here as a guest. Happy traveling and camping everyone.

What the heck is Arcosanti?

Well I haven't heard that word in a long time until this morning when my mom called and asked me to tag along on a road trip in search of the perfect windbell she needed for a gift. Ok, what is a windbell, and where exactly is Arcosanti again? If you travel north on Interstate 17 (exit at 262 Cordes Junction) and turn right, you will see a sign that points to the left called Arcosanti. Travel just a few miles down and you will find it.
The founder and chief architect of Arcosanti is an Italian man known as Paolo Soleri. Paolo was born in Italy in 1919 and moved to the United States to continue with his architectural career. He purchased land in Arizona in 1956, and in 1969, Arcosanti was designed and began construction in 1970. The term Arcosanti comes from the concept of architecture and ecology. Paolo's vision is to create a urban city with little impact on the environment, and in fact using the environment's natural resources rather than man made materials. This created Arcosanti. There are several sites within Arcosanti to see. We stopped at visitors center to purchase the windbells from the gift shop, but I couldn't help but walk up and down the stairs amazed at the beautiful architecture of the five story building. They have a great cafe as well. Some of the other structures you will see on the property are an outdoor amphitheatre, community swimming pool, apartments, greenhouses, gardens, and agricultural fields.Arcosanti is still a work in progress today and is primarily used for education. People from all over the world come here for education each year, and there are workshops almost all year round which helps with funding to keep Arcosanti running just as Paolo envisioned it would. The windells are pretty amazing as well, and can be purchased and shipped right from the gift shop. Don't just take my word for it, Visit this spectacular place for yourself. For more information either visit www.arcosanti.org or call 928-632-7135. Their hours of operation are open 7 days a week from 9am -5pm and tours are scheduled on the hour from 10am -4pm. Get out and explore Arizona.

Heber/Overguard, AZ

My husband and I had a great opportunity to visit Heber, AZ to celebrate the 4th of July this year with family and friends. One thing to remember, if you plan on attending Heber/Overguard for the 4th of July, you better plan months ahead of time as the only few hotels/lodges fill up very quickly. We left the Phoenix weather behind at 110 degrees to an 85 degrees in Heber. I can't say I was upset by that. My whole idea of writing these entries is to educate my readers on great places to travel and camp in the great state of Arizona. Despite the political views one may have, Arizona is still a beautiful place to be in and explore. Now let me introduce you to Heber/Overguard. This cute town was founded in around 1877 by mormans and is named after Heber J. Grant. The neighboring town Overguard, was found much later around the 1930's. Most Arizonans will remember the most devistating wild fire in the history of AZ which was called the rodeo/chedeski fire, which burned up a total of about 467K acres. When you travel east passing through Overguard, you can still see the devistating effect it took on the forest.
Some of the neighboring cities you will find near Heber/Overguard are, Payson, Forest Lakes, Pinedale,Show Low,Snowflake,and Hollbrook.Since there are so many campgrounds in the surrounding area, I decided to attach a link here. This is for the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. This link will also allow to you to view fire restrictions which are so important, and all additional info you may need before traveling http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/asnf/recreation/campgrounds Happy camping and traveling everyone.

Catalina State Park Tucson, Arizona

I had the pleasure along with my husband, and our yorkie Bailey, of visiting Catalina State Park in Tucson, Arizona this past weekend, and I was pleasantly amazed at it's beauty. I had heard about this place courtesy of my sister Jennifer who visited there last weekend. This park is nestled in the Coronado National Forest just minutes from a major city, and you would not have even known it. There is so much to talk about, so I will just get right down to it. The park itself offers so many adventures like hiking, bird watching, and camping.
The park is equipped with four major camping areas. The group camp area, (2 group sites) is the only area that will take reservations. You must have a minimum of 20 people and no more than 200. Each site has a 20x40 shade ramada, fire ring (bring your own wood) BBQ grill,and picnic tables. You can reserve up to 12 months in advance. The fees are $35 for the reservation, and $15 per vehicle per night.
The equestrian staging and camping area has 8 pens available. It is a first come first serve(no charge)area, which you can either use as a day trip which will cost you $6 or you can camp for $15, but there are no hookups. Horses cannot be ridden on some of the trails, so be sure to check ahead of time.
The next camp area (site B) allows RVs with no length restrictions. This area offers water and electric hookup and contains 95 sites. Here you will pay $25 a night with a 14 day maximum stay.
The last camp site which is (site A) has no hookups available. It has 25 sites available. all three of these campgrounds are all first come first serve only. The good news is that the campground facilities have bathrooms which are absolutely huge,clean,and have showers. The bad news is, since it is a first come first serve only, you may or may not find a site. They were full when we arrived, except by some miracle, there were 2 available sites in site B. One we got, and the other went to the people who were behind us. You can also take advantage of group day use as well. There are 2 day use group areas which are available also. It has a minimum of 20 people and a maximum of 200. It has the same amenities as the group campground and you can reserve this area as well. Good news about both group sites, they have flush restrooms and showers.
Camping is not the only thing available, you can also take advantage of some of the many wonderful hikes and site seeing as well. We arrived later than we expected so I was itching to do at least something before sun down, so I decided to take off walking towards the Romero Ruins with Bailey. Derek stayed behind and napped a little. I was so amazed to find a wash just before the trail head. It was so refreshing to walk barefoot in the sand. The Ruins were amazing to see. The scenery of the mountains and all the wonderful cacti and flowers were so breathtaking. The saguaro's were so abundant as well. I was able to capture some amazing pictures also. I am not a fan of camping around a lot of people, but I have to say the sites were spaced enough apart for complete privacy. It was very quiet and relaxing. I have had so many experiences where we have been kept up half of the night with other drunk campers in the area. You could have heard a pin drop that night. All in all, I would recommend this park not just for it's great camping, scenery, hiking, but for it's cleanliness, and hospitality it's employees have provided. A personal camp host takes you right to your camp spot. What other camp ground does that? Happy Camping everyone. http://azstateparks.com/Parks/CATA/index.html

Montezuma Well

Well, when I first started this blog, I intended it to be for camping advice, but since I find myself doing more traveling than camping lately why not write about my recent adventures. Due to the weather conditions in Flagstaff, Arizona over this past weekend, my husband and I were not able to visit the Wupatki National Monument just outside of Flagstaff. This is just one site of the three we did not attend. Since we had conquered all others in Flagstaff, we decided to travel south on Interstate 17 on our way home to see if anything of interest stood out. We saw a sign for Montezuma Well and thought, "what the heck" let's see what's it's all about. To our delight, we ended up enjoying every minute of this fantastic site.
Montezuma Well is sometimes referred to as "The living Desert Oasis" It was formed some 11,000 years ago. It is 365ft across and 55ft deep. Some of the early inhabitants are the Hohokam and the Sinagua Indians. The Hohokam Indians were said to have existed there around 600 A.D. and the Sinagua Indians around 1125 A.D. Scientists are not exactly sure what drove the Indians out, but they believe it was due to fear of war, disease, crop failure or even intra-villiage rivalry. In 1853, the first white man arrived at Montezumas Well. They found the vilage abandoned except for some local Indians living there. It wasn't until April of 1947 that it became a national monument. Once you arrive, you will be happy to know that it is free to visit here. Donations are accepted and much appreciated of course. There is a slight climb to the top of the overlook of the well, but when you get there, it pretty neat to see. They have stands with an overview of the history all along the entire path. You will see cliff dwellings, turtles, ducks, and even the irrigation system that was built and is still running today. This is a must see site. I don't want to give much away, as I want you to see this for yourself.