This past weekend we went up to Flagstaff to help our son Ben get some stuff moved into his new place. He is attending NAU in the fall to complete a degree he began at Yavapai Community College. He will be graduating in two years with a degree in Biology. He has rented a house with 4 other students. He has his own room, but the common spaces are shared. The location is great as it is between the campus and downtown and he has easy accessibility to everything.
We drove up to Prescott Valley on Saturday morning and packed his stuff up in the truck and ventured on to Flagstaff.
Once we had brought all his stuff in he wanted to take a bit of time to unpack and set things up so Steve and I went to Snow Bowl for a couple of hours.
We really love this area of Flagstaff and were excited to get a little hike in there.
The gondola was running and there was no line so we got tickets and took the little trip up. It was super cool to see the horizon from 11,500 feet!
At the top there was a little hike we took as well.
Steve was able to show me where the trail was that he hiked with Ben last year to Humphry’s peak. Super cool!!
Once we got back down off the gondola we hiked a bit of the Aspen Loop trail. This is truly one of my favorites in Arizona. It’s a magical place with all the Aspens. They are like the Birch trees of my childhood. They have a “million eyes” that watch you from every angle. The leaves whisper secrets to you in the wind. I always feel as though there are fairies flitting around.
Needless to say we enjoyed the hike tremendously.
You can see some photos and a video of our hike HERE.
Once we got back to Ben’s place we decided to get Indian for dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant here in Arizona. It was just as delicious as we remembered.
On our way back to Prescott Valley we saw a couple herds of Elk along the highway. They were majestic.
We got back to PV and crashed to sleep for the night.
In the morning we headed back to Tucson via Wickenburg. We decided to take a different route to see some new scenery. It was a pleasant drive.
We stopped in Phoenix to get some groceries at an Aldi’s. This was one of our favorite grocery stores back in Ohio and when we get a chance we take it. There are familiar items there that we can’t get anywhere else. We got our groceries and made it back to Tucson by dinner time.
We are working on where we will go next and Steve has had applications in Washington, Utah, California, New Mexico and Arizona. He has had a couple of interviews as well.
Right now it is looking like California will be our next home for three months.
We will keep you updated once things are finalized.
We only have 2 more weekends in Tucson. This weekend and next weekend.
The third weekend we will be traveling back to Prescott Valley.
We have an immense amount of work to do on our home there before selling or renting it. We will take the first two weeks of September and buckle down to do this.
The weather in Tucson has had a steady Monsoon pattern for the past couple of weeks. We get building clouds and heat and then the atmosphere breaks with thunderstorms and downpours of rain. We have enjoyed some amazing displays of lightning all around.
In Arizona you can watch entire rain storms from a distance, with the clouds going from sky to ground as the rain falls. These clouds will move around dumping the rain, but sometimes you will never actually see a drop of rain.
This is very different from where we grew up in Ohio and Maine.
Last evening as we took a walk we saw three of these rains going on around us.
It’s quite a sight to behold.