Chirahauas

Last weekend we decided to go for a little bit of summer-vacation-is-over denial and go on a mini vacation to a friend's place in the Chiricahua Mountains. It was a monsoony afternoon, which complicated packing the car, so we didn't get out of Tucson until after 5:00.  Beautiful thunderstorms were all around for the whole drive, and when it was not pouring rain it was utterly gorgeous. We stopped in Benson for a Mexican food dinner... resulting in chimichanga and chipolte chicken-filled bellies fueling the last 2 hours of the drive.  Once off the freeway (and now in the utter dark) we set our odometer to 0 as instructed by our friend, and counted on his detailed instructions to get us there through a pitch black night interrupted intermittently by lightning in the distance. Round about mile 24 down a dirt road, after coati, owl, and many small creature sightings, we came to an exceptionally narrow and rough road... with still no cabin in sight.  By this point all of the backseat folks were tired and not just a little bit unsure of our navigation skills, but fortunately after 10 minutes of creeping up a steep and bumpy road we arrived at our little home for the weekend.  We managed to find the hidden key, but turning on the water for the night was just not going to happen.

The next morning (with water turned on thankfully) we ate breakfast, explored where a pipe led to, and then piled into the car for an over-the-mountain 4x4 drive to Chiricahua National Monument.  Although most of the area had burned in 2011 (including the area all around the place we stayed) it was a beautiful drive with great scenery.  It is also one of the wettest places in Arizona, and as such it poured rain for almost the entire drive up and over the mountain.

Fortunately by the time we arrived at the National Monument is was only drizzling (and we managed to find a covered picnic table for lunch).

 

 Everyone enjoyed climbing on the rocks (and the fact that it wasn't over 100 degrees!) Izzy in particular was very excited about climbing (and not just a little bit silly)

Then we drove down the road to another short hike to "the grottos"  Evie, Anna, and I went ahead, figuring Izzy and Patrick wouldn't make the whole hike.  Then on our way back we met up with them and decided to hike the little bit more for a second time so they could see the grottos too (because it really was just that cool)

After a long day of adventure we decided we did not need the adventure of going back up and over the mountain (especially given that it was muddy in the morning, and it looked like the area had received rain all day long).  So we took a less hairy back-road back...

In the evening Evie relaxed and read all of the New Yorkers in the house (well really just the cartoons.. but she was entertained by this for at least an hour) and then we made a taco dinner.

The next morning we packed up our bags and headed back to Tucson.  On the way home we made a stop at Apple Annie's to pick apples, pears and peaches (and a lunch of hamburgers).  Although it was pretty hot in Wilcox, it was a lot of fun and is definitely a stop that we'll add to our back and forth from the cabin itinerary for the future, especially because dogs were allowed and welcome!