Best friends

Remember when you were a kid, and you’d wake up on a sunny summer morning?  There would be an endless, long day stretched out before you. You’d jump out of bed, run over to your best friend’s house, and say, “What do you want to do today!”

We would spend hours and days with our best friend exploring the fields and woods, dashing around on our old fashioned fat tire bikes, and just hanging out together.  And all this was just outside our back door.  Anything and everything was fun as long as we were with the our best friend.

We have returned to those magical days of our childhoods in the 1950’s.   We wake up every morning and say, “What do you want to do today?”

We have boundless opportunities to have fun together, wherever we are—at Nuestra Casa (our home in Mesa), at our cabin, or in the Turtle (our truck/camper).  Best friends can always have fun together, doing anything, anywhere!

The Tonto National Forest surrounds our cabin in the little hamlet of Pine, and Mogollon Rim towers above us to the north.  The Rim stretches east and west on the northern horizon as far as we can see.  This area is a magnificent outdoor playground, and we love it!

See the rim at the top of the photo?

We have found several places to hike and cycle right outside the back door of our Cabin. There are hundreds of miles of roads and trails for us to explore up Hardscrabble Road and on the Hardscrabble Mesa.  There are numerous hiking trails that surround Pine in every direction that wind their way deep into the national forest. 

The Arizona Trail travels right through Pine, heading south through the Tonto National Forest to the Matzatzal Wilderness. The AZT runs north beneath the Mogollon Rim and after several miles eventually climbs to the top of the Rim.  

But of all the hiking trails in the area, we have found the gem…The Pine-Strawberry Trail. And it is two blocks from our home….right outside our back door!

It is a magical wonderland—like something out of a fairy tale.

On this trail we are treated to spectacular views in every directions on this trail.

Below us in the valley we can see Pine, our little village at the base of the Mogollon Rim.

There is a trail just up the street from our cabin that connects into thiss Pine-Strawberry Trail.

We hiked a different section of the trail on four different days, starting on Hardscrabble Road, at Strawberry, and twice from the connector trail near our cabin.  Each day we made it an “out and back” hike, so we have actually hiked over 15 miles on this trail, including hiking from our home and on the connector trail.  

We were so enchanted with the beauty that surrounded us as we hiked, that we were surprised we had climbed almost 2300+ feet up and down the mountainside above our cabin. Amazing!

This scenic trail is a series of switchbacks that follows the contours along the east side of Strawberry Mountain.  It travels up and down, and then up and down again through the pine forest dotted with small meadows.  

On our last trip to our cabin it was at the start of December just before winter set in and the intermittent snows started.  We were treated to a special surprise on the trail—red fall leaves blanketed the ground.

We can hardly wait to hike the trail in a few months after the snows melt, and the fresh green grass and bright spring flowers pop up along the hillside and in the meadows!

Tomorrow we will wake up to a sunny morning.  Me and my best friend will have an endless, long day stretched out before us.  And we will say, “What do you want to do today?” No matter what we do, we know that will have an adventure, and it will be fun.

It is wonderful when our best friend is also the love of our lives.