In Search of Fall

photo credit: Tulip

I found it! 

By now you know I love Fall and Fall is just something the Phoenix area does not do well. 96° still in mid October... so not fall and palm trees just don't get those pretty colored leaves like the trees back home. I was on a mission. Surely I didn't have to drive far north to find some fall, I knew I could find it somewhere closer. With my friend Tulip on tow, we were going to make today a successful Fall mission, and boy did we succeed! (next year I'll get a bit earlier start, then I'll be sure to have an even better AZ Fall) 

About an hour and fifteen minutes Northeast of here, in what they call Rim country, there is a town called Payson. In my google research this sounded like a good place to start, keeping in mind we knew we might be too late to see colors. NOPE! There was all kinds of pretty yellows and shades of orange, even a few red colors here and there. We found this lake on accident after I missed the sign for the visitor's center... ah happy accidents ;) 

Fall! 

After we found our way back to visitors center, Donna, the ever so helpful volunteer provided us with a few other drives that might help us find the fall color we were searching for. We also asked her opinion for a good breakfast/lunch location and she suggested the airport. She said it had a great view and lots of windows to see the small planes fly in and out.

Donna's suggestion did not disappoint! Little hole in the wall places are almost always the best! I had some delicious french toast and Tulip had the largest plate of homemade biscuits and gravy I have ever seen! She let me try a few bites and man was it yummy! We even got to see a few planes fly in and out just like Donna had said! And that view! They don't call it the 'home of the million dollar view for nothing!"

photo credit - Tulip

Our next stop was a suggested drive from Donna at the visitor's center as well, though it wasn't peak color, it was just enough to call it fall. The temperature was in the mid 60's and we drove with our window's down the whole way up the road, even though it was a tad bit windy today up in rim country, we couldn't help ourselves. 

This route ended at the Tonto Creek hatchery (about 21 miles from Payson) where most of the fish that are stocked in the lakes all around Arizona come from! The hatchery is a self guided tour around the area.

Visitor's Center

The show pond with fully grown trout

tons of baby fishies

These troughs are where the baby fish are kept until they get big enough to release

more fish! 

photo credit: Tulip

A few of the trees outside the hatchery had lost their beautiful trees, so I decided I needed a photo op to prove that we had found fall! Thanks Tulip for being my personal paparazzi today! 

The area around the hatchery also included Tonto creek which we could hear bubbling as soon as we got out of the car. The whole area was beautiful and offered several trails. This will be a great place to come back to a little earlier in the fall season to do some hiking and get the full fall effect! 

Photo credit: Tulip

The next stop down the road a bit (or a bit farther if you miss your turn off. Visitor Center Donna was not the best giver of directions) was the Mogollon Rim this had come up on my google search as well as something to see in the area. It's basically a giant dividing line in Arizona with kind of a sheer drop off and boasts some amazing views! At this point we were at a slightly higher elevation and being on a cliff means the wind was super windy wind and it was down right chilly! 

Proof! I'm sure with the windchill it was much cooler!

Photo credit: Tulip

Tulip was as bundled up as she could get! 

Photo credit: Tulip

Photo credit: Tulip

As we were driving back home and looking around we saw what appeared to be a giant geyser of water shooting straight up into the sky. Surely there isn't a geyser around here, maybe that is smoke that just looks like water? As we got closer we decided it was definitely water so Tulip googled to see what it could be as we navigated closer to figure out just exactly it was. Turns out it's a giant fountain in the town of Fountain Hills.

The fountain uses 3-600HP pumps to shoot the water 560 feet into the sky. That is 110 feet higher than Old Faithful in Yellowstone! The fountain runs every hour on the hour for 15 minutes from 9am-9pm, unless it's too windy. 

The whole Fountain Hills area looks very pretty, lots of shops and restaurants in their downtown that over look the fountain park. Fountain park is a massive 64 acre spread that has an 18 hole frisbee golf course and several playgrounds, it was a nice little detour.

Purple mountains majesty 

All it took was a few hours, a full tank of gas, a few sketchy directions and our mission to find Fall was a complete success! I can rest happy now that I finally have my taste of fall!