Ironwood Forest National Monument

Ironwood Forest National Monument is southwest of the town of Marana, AZ.  It is not a big, or well known national monument, but it is known for this beautiful peak, ironwood trees, and the wildlife that calls this area home, like desert tortoises and big horn sheep.

As Steve and I hike around, we are always intrigued by the beauty we find.  Sometimes in the living, and sometimes in the dead.  Dead saguaros resemble trunks and branches.

This dead ironwood tree is also very artistic with all of its knots and burls.

This is the biggest ironwood tree we have ever seen.  I am in the picture for perspective.

There is a loop road that goes all the way around the peak.  The views seemed to get prettier the farther in we drove.  We didn't make it clear around the loop though.  Our hikes took too much time and we were getting hungry and had to go back.  Maybe next time.

 

This is a quiet little park.  I think we saw three cars and two campers while we were here.  Dispersed camping is allowed for 14 days at a time. There were no real hiking trails to speak of, so any exploring is just through the desert. We would love to come back here and camp so we would have more time to explore, and maybe even see some of the wildlife that lives here.

After we left the park, we went to a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in Marama for lunch, called Nico’s.  I ordered a Chile relleno burrito and Steve ordered a carnitas burrito. They were so big that we ended up splitting one for lunch and saving the other for dinner.  My burrito had rice in it with the relleno, which we weren’t very fond of, we would have preferred beans.  Steve’s burrito was carnitas and avocado, which was perfect!  Great food, we’d definitely go back!

Roses In the Desert

We were on our way to Ironwood Forest National Monument, when we came across this beautiful field of roses on highway 87, just south of Coolidge, AZ.  We've seen them before, driving through this area, and always assumed that they were being grown for florists, but when we came back by today, they are all in full bloom and haven't been cut.  

They are gorgeous, and no matter the reason for these roses, they brought a little joy and color to our day.

Apache Trail, Near Canyon Lake, AZ

After a big Thanksgiving holiday, it always feels good to get out and work it off with a beautiful hike, and in Arizona, the weather is almost always perfect for that.

We love the Canyon Lake area, and decided that would be the perfect place.  We chose the Superstition Wilderness.  There is a huge network of trails in this area that I will show at the end of our hike  we chose to just go out and back on trail 104.

When we finished our hike, we drove further up the highway, past Tortilla Flats.  The terrain gets very rugged with deep valleys and jagged rocks. There is dispersed camping about half way to the road closure, which looked pretty nice. 

After exploring the high part of the road, we headed back down to Canyon Lake for a coffee break.  We used the Vietnamese coffee pour-overs that our youngest daughter gave us for Christmas as a special treat. 

This was the perfect way to enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend!

Superstition Springs Golf Club

We had an incredible couple of days with our good friends Sam and Sharyn, hanging out and enjoying sights and tastes in the East valley, and the culmination was a game of golf at the Superstition Springs Golf Club.  It was an unexpectedly nice course at the intersection of Baseline and Power.  When we checked in, everyone was super friendly and helpful for us newbys at this course.  There was a restaurant with a patio, but we really didn’t get a chance to check it out.  The course was in great shape, and was full of rolling hills and bunkers which made it an exciting course to play!  The pictures don’t do the hills justice at all.

We’re super excited to play this course again some day!  And the good news is…it’s fairly close to our house!

Agave Highlands Golf Club, Cornville, AZ

Our hotel golf package took us to a “cute” little course north of Cottonwood, called Agave Highlands.  I say “cute”, because at first glance, it is cute and not intimidating, but after 18 holes, we realized that it’s a booty kicker.  It is a narrow course that’s very hungry!  It ate a lot of balls!  And apparently, it had eaten a lot of other peoples balls too, because although we could never find our own balls, we almost always came out of the thicket with a replacement.

Although this course isn’t rated as super hard, and it didn’t have a single sand trap, it truly humbled me today.  But just looking around at the Sedona Rim and surrounding Mingus Mountains made it all worth it. We had a great time playing this course and would definitely come back if we were in the area!

Wine Tasting in Cottonwood, AZ

We spent our afternoon walking around Old Town Cottonwood where our hotel was located.  Such a cute town, but a lot of the shops aren’t open on weekdays right now because of the labor shortage, but according to everyone in town, everything is fully open on weekends and quite busy!

After enjoying the town, we headed to our first wine tasting at Pillsbury Wine Company.  This was a pretty casual tasting room, although still fun.

This was our favorite Pillsbury wine…Guns and Kisses, and at $90 a bottle, I guess it should be our favorite. Not anything we would ever be interested in buying!

Tasting room 2 was called Burning Tree Cellars.  Of course, a very different feel from Pillsbury.  It was a quieter, more laid back atmosphere with lots of conversation and learning opportunities.

Our favorite wine here was called El Delgado, which means skinny man.

And our final wine tasting was at Winery 101.  Again, very casual, but a laidback feel.

We love hearing about all of the vineyards and their winemaking processes.  Our fun fact of the day is that most of the wine grapes in AZ are grown near the little town of Wilcox in south east Arizona.  All of the establishments we visited today were just tasting rooms, no vineyards or actual wineries.  We thought that was interesting.  It was also fun to hear about the lives of the people that live and work in this small town.

Lunch in Jerome, AZ

Jerome, AZ is an old mining town, high in the hills above Cottonwood, AZ, where we are staying.  We have been here before, but only by trails on our RZR, covered in dust and very wind blown.  Today’s visit was by car, so much more civilized.  We could walk around town without feeling like dusty spectacles.

The view from Jerome, overlooking Cottonwood and the hills of Sedona.

The town of Jerome has character. You never know what you might see.

We tried to go to our favorite little restaurant called ‘Grapes’, but unfortunately it was closed for remodeling, so we went to a place down the block called ‘Clinkscale’.  Super cute place, but the food just didn’t replace Grapes.  

This little shop kind of shows you the feel of Jerome.  Quaint, hilly, and all about the views!

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After a little shopping in Jerome, we headed back to Cottonwood for more exploring.