Wednesday, February 25th we begin a voyage northwest to Roosevelt Lake. We traversed an insane road called Apache Trail Highway (88). This highway wound about the hills and canyons at times leaving only enough space for one car to get through and several single lane little bridges. Then it suddenly goes from paved to unpaved retaining all of the fun single lanes, etc. The scenery was insanely beautiful with multicolored and layered, rock canyons. The canyons were carved out along the hillside of the Salt River leading into Canyon Lake, Apache Lake and Roosevelt Lake. Very strange to see the contrast of a saguaro cactus two feet from the water. We stopped to peek at Roosevelt Dam and take a few pictures.
The 3 of us at Roosevelt Dam
Roosevelt Lake
All of our hiking and nature adventure to date has occurred in the Tonto National Forest (Strange that it's a forest with cactus instead of trees). Tonto National Monument, located within this forest was our actual destination for the day. The monument includes several protected ruin sites of a prehistoric people posthumously called the Salado. We were able to visit one of the ruin sites and had the pleasure of being pestered by Africanized honeybees as pointed out to us by the park ranger.
Ruins
Ruins Close-up.
On our way down from the ruins we happened upon our friend the rattlesnake once again. But this time he was coiled up and rattling to beat the band. And we have VIDEO! Check it out.
Pic of our friend
Charly's Video of our friend.
My Video of our friend.
No thanks, snaky snake. I've been teaching little G all about snakes -- the kind you make out of Play-Doh!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you are having quite the adventure! Thanks for the Valentine!