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! 

This Is Halloween

No trick-or-treaters and no plans equals Hocus Pocus and Papa Johns.

A quiet Friday night at home with a good DVD is all you need sometimes. I bought some candy just in case any trick-or-treaters came by, but not a one (so I've become the trick-or-treater). The doorbell only rang when my pizza arrived. (for realz I have a pizza problem)

The high today was 94°, I'm not used to that temperature for Halloween. Halloween is usually a four season day in Illinois, meaning it can go from Fall to summer, then spring to winter all in a day, sounds like this year was no different. The high back home was 45° today with a freezing low dropping down to 28° I won't lie... I miss those crisp cool fall days, the days right before you start cursing the arrival of winter. 

There is a cool down in store for us this coming week with the highs in the lower 70's and some overnight lows dipping into the 50's. I have a weekend mission of finding fall... I'll let you know how that goes.

Happy Halloween! 

OL's Trees

Old Lady sent me this picture today of the trees in her yard. She has been keeping me posted on our tree that we used to drive by everyday on our way into work. Now neither of us drive by it daily, but it was always the first tree to show the colors of fall. She said our tree is empty now so she sent this one instead. This is why I love OL, she keeps me posted. 

Thanks OL! I can't wait to see you and Page Turner when I come home in a few weeks! Save the date! 

Rainy Fall Saturday in Arizona

It doesn't happen too often, but it's been happening more than usual this year (of course). It's been raining all day today! Full on thunderstorms, we had warnings and thunder and lightening and tons of rain! It even flooded our drainage basin again. 2.14" was the final total for today. The other great thing about today's rain, it dropped the temperature from 90° to 70°

This cold front has been the first sign that it will eventually cool down and I can be thankful I live in a winter paradise! We brought in the first day of fall with a high of 104°! Fall is my favorite season so it will be interesting to see how I manage without the crisp cool nights, backyard fires and the beautiful colors of the leaves changing. I miss my favorite tree on my drive to work back in Illinois, it was always one of the first signs of fall approaching. So go ahead and brag about your real Midwestern fall, complete with farmers in the fields.... we'll chat come December/January ;) 

The First Snow

If you follow from a warmer climate you might be surprised to know that here in Central Illinois we've already had our first snow. Now the old wives day that the day of the first snow that you can track a cat, that is how many snow's you will have that winter, though technically it's not even winter yet so I wonder if this will hold true? But according to this we will have 11 snows. OL has already marked her calendar to keep track, this may be the first year that the 'track a cat' part hasn't been disputed. I'm can promise you can track a cat because I'm pretty sure there was a creature, not a cat, that took up residence on our porch last night, I'm guessing it was a raccoon or an opossum.

I'm especially happy that our furnace was finally fixed yesterday too, just in time for the first snow. We have radiators throughout our house and there was a malfunction with a water valve and the part was on order for over a week, luckily I don't mind sleeping a little cold. I made sure to bundle up in my sweatpants and a couple blankets. I actually had to shed some layers last night! Today I'm thankful for warmth and heating. Keep warm my fellow Illinoisans! 

Update: it appears I spoke too soon, our furnace is out again, water all over the basement, I'm in for another cold night! 

Bucket List: Notre Dame Football Game- check!

A HUGE bucket list item checked off the list today! See a Notre Dame home football game... check! Even better that dad was there too! I had been checking the weather forecast all week and wouldn't you know it, cold and 50% chance of showers... we'll get to that.

After our lovely drive over to South Bend, with a few sprinkles and showers on the way, we made it to the home of The Fighting Irish! The skies were mostly cloudy with blue peeking through here and there. We arrived in plenty of time so we were able to walk around campus. Seriously, I have never seen a more beautiful campus before, lots of trees and older buildings. The building you see above is the golden dome which is home to the admissions and administrative offices.

Here's a look from the inside.

And we had to take a walk to see the lake... beautiful!

and to the grotto.

But this is where our story turns soggy. After we went to check out the grotto we made our way to the bookstore, I needed to stock up on some ND gear. Once we got there holy moly, nevermind, I'll shop online. Then as we stepped outside the heavens opened up and rain came pouring down, oh and the wind picked up out of nowhere. Boom. Soaked.

But don't fear! We came prepared! Well, as well as you can be prepared with a Dollar Store emergency poncho. So we poncho'd up and waited out the rain under the cover of safety and semi-warmth. But soon the rain turned to drizzle, then to a fine mist, then it was safe to venture out to our seats.

Oh hey there NBC, they were set up shop right in front of us, luckily their little tent folded down at game start, but popped back up again at halftime and blocked some of our view of the marching band.

Then something happend, you might even call it a miracle, but the clouds gave way and blue skies poked through just as the Marching Band was taking the field for their pregame performance. They began with America the Beautiful, then began the Star Spangled Banner.

As soon as the last line of the Star Spangled Banner hit, the roar of six Navy Blue Angels jets came in from above. This is seriously one of the coolest things I have experienced in some time. It was just that awesome.

It's a full house!

Those fellas in the blue pants are the pilots that did the fly over

Notre Dame touch down! Time for push ups!

The Navy mascot, he's a goat

Here's the band at halftime, you can see the Irish Guard and the NBC tent in our way

It may have been cold, it may have been rainy, but it was still totally an amazing experience to be at Notre Dame on game day. I would gladly go again. I will say some days it's better to be a home in your comfy warm clothes and watch the game at home. But nothing will ever beat the experience of sitting on a little piece of wood bleacher soaked from the rain, with a soaked butt watching from row 7, seat 10, section 23 for my first Notre Dame game. There aren't even words capable of describing the feeling. Glad you could be there dad, sorry Navy lost, it was close. ;) 

Notre Dame - 38
Navy - 34

Go Irish!