We took a trip out to the Salt River to the northeast of us this weekend and it was a perfect morning. The drive is only about 45 minutes (shorter if you remember to buy a National Forest pass before getting to the parking lot) and it's an absolutely beautiful area. It's easy to forget that you're in Arizona playing down in the mud and bamboo. Since it's late spring here the desert is buzzing with bees and we had to leave our little oasis sooner than expected due to some aggressive flying fuzzy friends.
Sticks and mud. What else does a little boy need? Tadpoles perhaps? Yes, those were there too.
"Gick!" as Rupert likes to call them.
My three favorite boys on the planet.
See? Hardly even looks like arid Arizona.
Lots of sticks. Even more mud.
First foray into the water.
Looking east.
Pants are gone, and into the water he goes!
Pure joy.
"The river is alive...with the sound of splashing!"
Rupert was less thrilled about the running into the river thing. He preferred the bank and poking stuff with sticks.
We made it halfway!
A Desert Spiny Lizard.
And his lady friend.
It's hard to see, but both the boys were corning a little Common Side-Blotched lizard on the curb. That lizard had been cornered before (by the looks of his second-hand tail) and had learned his lesson, so he made a hasty exit about 2.1 seconds after this photo was taken.
In other news, Josh got a big promotion at work! He's doing really well at Mercer and they like him quite a bit. Phoenix has been very, very good to us. We have met the most wonderful people, Josh gets to work somewhere he enjoys, and on top of it all, we get to spend our weekends at beautiful places like this. We love you, American Southwest!
