Hey Ya’ll!  So sorry I have been a bad blogger.  Life is super busy and I’m a wee bit lazy.  Chuck and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary yesterday (we almost forgot about it) and enjoyed a mellow evening watching horror movies.  Nothing says love and romance like ghoulies ripping peoples’ throats out.  Funny side — Chucklebutt thought we had been married for seven years.  Hmmmm, I wonder what that says about our relationship?  😀

Over Memorial Day Weekend, we headed up to Payson for some awesome hiking and swimming.  We usually stay at the Majestic Mountain Inn, but they were all booked.  The Best Western was a pretty good substitute.  While it wasn’t the Ritz, it definitely served its purpose.

Super spacious rooms to spread all our stuff around.

Our room was the one on top.  It was nice having our own little balcony.  Apparently there was a big wedding going on and the entire wedding party was in the rooms below us.  They were an interesting group.

The grounds were really pretty and the continental breakfast rocked!  We got to make our own Belgian waffles.  Yumm-eee.

Chuck loading up the car.

Why yes we are wearing the same style pants — and if you must know, the same size too.

On Saturday, we decided to go in search of the Verde River Hot Springs.  One of the geocaches we were working on, led us right to them.  Now let me just say, that it was one heck of a trip just getting to the parking lot.  We had to turn off two dirt roads, and were it not for Esmerelda — my new car — we wouldn’t have made it.  Talk about needing a high clearance vehicle!  Anyway, the area was pretty remote — near the old Childs-Irving Power Plant.

I swiped the above picture from the APS website.  The history is pretty fascinating.

So, when we got to the parking area, we noticed that it was PACKED with people.  And not just any sort of people, but beer drinking, pot smoking, pit bull dog kind of peole.  I have never seen so many pit bulls in all my life.  It was like a dog show for the breed.  Now let me just say, that I do not like pit bulls — I’ll admit it, I’m a breedist.  Give me a Lab, Golden or Lhasa any day of the week.  Pit bulls?  Ummm…not so much.  As we started out on our hike, this pit bull comes running after us.  Actually not really running, more like trotting.  His owner kept yelling at him but the dog was not interested in the slightest.  I tried to ignore the fella and kept walking.  All of a sudden I noticed that something was stepping on my heels.  Yup!  You guessed it — Fido wasn’t watching where he was going.  EEEP!  I almost went into panic attack mode and wet my pants.  I did some deep breathing all the while Chuck is snickering.  He’s not scared of any dog.  Anyway, the owner finally wrangled the dog back to camp and we were on our way.

Gorgeous views!

Once leaving the campsites, we didn’t really run into anyone.  Just the way we like it.

We found the geocache and a whole slew of tadpoles.  I mean they were EVERYWHERE!  From the cache’s location, we went in search of the hot springs.  The only directions we had were to cross the river and look for the palm trees.  Mind you, it was quickly getting dark and the sun had almost set completely.

We ran into these fellows upstream.  They were drinking something that looked like antifreeze.  They were super happy and very friendly.  😀  This is Chuck crossing the river.  We were told to do so at this particular spot because it was the shallowest.  FYI — Just because it was shallow, does NOT mean that the current wasn’t swift.  Once crossing the river, the guys asked us if we knew where we were going.  We lied and told them yes — not our brightest move.

We found the palm trees and Chuck took to taking some neat pics with a flashlight.  Oh yeah — and we were in pretty much complete darkness.

We found the foundation of the old hotel and figured that was all there was.  Perhaps we had misunderstood what was actually up there.  So, we headed back across the river where we ran into some seriously inebriated folks and — you guessed it!  — more pit bulls.  One of the guys was hilarious and said that there were actual hot springs.  He said they weren’t very far and we just HAD to come.  They crossed the river and both of their dogs got caught in  he current.  They finally made it across and I convinced a grumpy Chucklebutt we were following these crazy people.  He was not impressed and his thought bubble was pretty rude.  Anyway, I’m glad I took charge, because check out what we discovered!

We did not take this picture — remember we were there in the pitch black.  It was awesome!!  The pools were pretty crowded (and there was that whole clothing optional thing going on) so we headed down to the river where we went swimming in the run off.  It was so incredible and well worth all the hassle.  And the stars?  OMG!  I have never seen the stars so vibrant.  It was just a magical night.  We had such a good time despite the ruckus above us.

As we were leaving, this crazy fellow kept wanting us to go into the big pools.  We tried to explain to him that we had experienced the water down below.  He was not buying it.  Chuck and I had to do a “Hey what’s that behind you?”  and run like hell.  Before leaving, we did manage to encounter some bats which freaked me out and ran into Chuck’s chest.  Never a dull moment!

Stay tuned — there’s more craziness to come.  😀