Lovin' This Feeling

I had been looking forward to this weekend and this day for over a month now and I couldn't contain my excitement, though I don't think anyone else really saw it except me. The whole weekend was a blast and the best part: just getting out of town and doing something new & different and exploring AND being with Joshy! Our plan was to head out early Saturday morning, but of course this means Dewey time, i.e. time I thought we'd leave + 2 hours...no big deal though I was just excited to go. We packed everything in the car and headed up. Our destination was the Prescott area, after making a detour along the way through Dewey, AZ which to our surprise wasn't much of a town to look at. Anyway, we made it to Granite Mtn trailhead and began packing our backpacks for the hike up and camp on the mountain for the night.

Along the trail we saw some gorgeous trees and rocks. We stopped for a short break and heard some catidids (sp?) in the bushes. We both took our turns trying to get some pictures of these, as they blended in with the leaves very well. Pretty cool to see up close, I've never seen one before! After getting some info from fellow hikers about a swarm of bees up ahead and finding it ourselves, we were halted in our hike to the top. Found a camp site nearby and set up our tent.

 We got to watch a gorgeous sunset on the rocks of the mountain as the rocks changed color and the sky began to take a great color with a bright moon up above. We warmed up dinner; pork brats with rotel and italian pasta salad and to top it off, a homemade, famous Butter Pound Cake that was made by me for our 1st anniversary. The top to our wedding cake is still in my mom's freezer, in Colorado. This cake made do and was amazing! I think I was more excited about the cake than Josh was, but he's just a boy :) 

While getting things settled for bed and just before sunset we saw a perigon (sp?) falcon fly through the trees. Pretty cool! We played for a bit with our cameras and the light in the tent and then headed to bed, us early-to-bed-ers were out by 8:30. Maybe it was all the fresh air! We got up the next morning and I think this was the more eventful day, just because of what we saw. After packing up our camp and heading back down to the trailhead we started on our hike out. Not making it more than 30 feet from our venture back on the trail I looked down to see something crawling across the trail. Oh My GOODNESS!!!! This little guy sick looking creature was just down right creepy! We measured it by laying Josh's camera down next to it. This guy was 8-10 inches long, blue and yellow and orange...ugh! So creepy. Glad we saw this in the morning and not the night before or we may have not slept at all. Ugh...found one of these only red and white in our basement when I lived in Colorado. Anyway, on we go...! We were enjoying the hike out, maybe it was because our packs were a little lighter; helps when you drink some of that water weight and eat the food! Next on our little adventure we heard a ruffle in the bushes to our right and sure enough are 4 Javalinas (Hav-ah-lean-ahs). I've only heard about these and from what I've heard, they are rare to see. They were about 50 yards or so away and I was snapping pictures left and right, but even zoomed in was hard to make out until they moved away. Basically they are wild bores/pigs. We started walking on our way when one of them began to stare us down...Next while on our hike out we saw 2 deer jump through the bushes to our left. While this was not rare for us to see being from Colorado, this was the first we'd seen in Arizona and they were real close, maybe 20 yards away. We were well on our way with a list of cool creatures seen so far and we hadn't even left the trailhead yet! 

Our next adventure was to go kayaking on Watson Lake. What perfect weather for it too; warm, slight breeze, probably about 88-92 degrees..love it! And a huge bonus, and I mean HUGE, we got a waterproof camera just for this trip (my gift to Josh for our anniversary!) so we COULD take it on the kayak with us WITHOUT dropping it in the water or being submerged if we happen to SINK THE KAYAK, there is a total inside joke here if you don't know what I'm talking about it, check out the story here. So our kayaking adventure was that much better since we could take pictures! What a great way to enjoy an outdoor activity and man what a workout! I don't want to brag but I was a speed demon and Josh was eating my dust the whole day! I was all over that lake. We had such a great weekend, I wish every weekend were like this. I think I may take up kayaking as a sport, I mean I rock at it?! haha!

So that was our 1st anniversary trip in a nutshell. We had a blast and loved exploring parts of Arizona we'd never seen before. Next time I can do without the creepy bugs!