Weekend at the Cabin

This weekend I took off with my husband and some friends for some peace, relaxation, and cooler weather in the high country. My husbands family has a cute little cabin in Pine, Arizona, which is about 30 minutes from Payson (about 2 hours northeast of Phoenix). Its a great place to go to get away from it all for a couple of days, and this trip was much needed!Isn't the cabin cute? We had fun cooking out and picking fresh berries. One of my favorite things to do in Payson is go to some of the antique shops. We got a big thunderstorm the first day we were there which gave us the perfect excuse to stay indoors and do lots of shopping!

The first day we were there we went exploring to find this place called Ellison Falls. We'd never been there but heard there was a nice swimming hole and wanted to see what it was like.As you can see, it was beautiful. The turquoise color of the water was striking against the background of red rock. I will definetly be going back here. It was a major bonus that it was only about a half mile hike.

The next day we went on a hike to Fossil Springs. It was an 8 mile hike that I wasn't sure I could make. I had very patient people with me:)We had to hike to the bottom of this canyon. Hiking out was the hard part.I started out in the back and was there the whole way. One of the most beautiful things on the hike were these blooming agave plants that just shot out into the sky across the desert. They were gorgeous.Unfortunately the thunderstorm we had the day before made the hike pretty muddy and the water really murky. Usually Fossil Springs has water that is a gorgeous turquoise color. This isn't the spring, just a wash on the way, but I thought the color of the water was really cool because it shows how red the rock is here.
Fossil Springs "seems to appear out of nowhere, gushing 20,000 gallons a minute out of a series of springs at the bottom of a 1,600 foot deep canyon." The water was really clear near each spring, but pretty murky in the rest of the stream because of all the rain. We did a little bit of swimming mostly to cool off before we started the hike back up the canyon.We left to hike out at just the right time. We heard lots of thunder on our way out, and as soon as we approached the parking lot to leave it started to rain. I would never want to get caught in that canyon during a flash flood (which happens fairly often this time of year).
It was the hardest hike I've done in a really long time (if ever) and I am actually really proud of myself. Of course, I can barely move today, but it was really fun and a much needed weekend off. My favorite part was not the hike, but was playing "Take Two" (a version of scrabble) with our friends. It was a great weekend!