Lost in fields of gold

We returned to our home away from home in Strawberry for a week of hiking.  And the temperature was perfect so we could sit outside in the afternoons.  This is a quaint, little, strange mountain town at almost 6000’ altitude on the edge of the Mogollon Rim, where it is warm but not hot during the summer months in Arizona.  We love it here and so do the elk.  They live in Strawberry and in the surrounding forests.  We saw elk out our back door, walking down the streets, and out in the wild as we hiked.  

We hiked over 27 miles this week.  We saw only a handful of hikers on the Arizona Trail.....but our new friends, the elk, were plentiful.

The area where we are staying and hiking is where the Tonto National Forest, the Coconino National Forest, and the Apache Sitgreave National Forest meet.  The hiking opportunities are diverse and endless.  There are hundreds of miles of old deserted dirt roads, and the Arizona Trail crisscrosses all three of these national forests.  During the hot summer months this is a land of paradise where we can hike to our heart’s content.

The monsoons this summer, with the days on end of high winds, rainfall, thunder, and lightning, have resulted in massive flooding throughout Arizona.  But the weather has not prevented us from continuing our cycling, swimming, and walks while we are in Leisure World.  We just got out between the storms and before mid-morning when the temperatures begin to climb into the high 90’s and up.   

So after less than two weeks at Nuestra Casa, the rim was calling us.  We returned to Strawberry and the Airbnb where we had celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary just a few weeks ago.  

We had to dodge the monsoon rain, lightning, and thunder the first few days, but we got out and hiked most every day. The monsoons brought us some muddy wet roads that we had to maneuver on our hikes, but they also brought us a feast for the eyes—bright green grass and abundant flowers throughout all the forests and meadows where we hiked.

Here is our week in pictures:

 

The elk were up early as we headed out hiking in the morning.

 

As we headed out hiking on our last day, the monsoon rains and clouds were gone.  The skies where so bright and blue that we started singing, “I can see clearly now, the rain has gone….”   Of course we JUST had to start dancing!

The trees thinned out and suddenly before us was a field of gold—an enormous enchanted meadow filled with bright yellow wildflowers.  Acres and acres of a flat meadow. We lost ourselves in the glory that nature had given us on this day.