Payson, AZ

Our travels this weekend took us to Payson, Arizona. Originally we were going to go to a place called Show Low, AZ, do come kayaking, and then camp for the night. I did a little weather check on that town and saw that it got to be about 30 at night. No thanks. So we picked a town that only got the 40's at night. You can call me a wussy camper if you want, but I don't see you fools camping.

The ride up to Payson (an hour and 1/2) was beautiful, probably my most favorite drive yet. We left the saguaros behind and headed up in elevation. The temps dropped to a comfy 70 something and we were surrounded by pines and oaks and aspens. The trees were just starting to change color.

Near Payson there is a State Park called Tonto Natural Bridge. We thought we would spend the day Saturday exploring that. We got to the campground and set up shop for the night. Our neighbors across the road were a bunch of 4 legged guys.

our campsite

our neighbors the mules

We got to the park not knowing what to expect, we hadn't seen any pictures. To our joy, it was awesome. It was a very cool place to go and see and hike around. We hiked down to the bottom of the natural bridge where water cascaded down, and followed a stream to the other end of the park to another beautiful waterfall.


We keep posting pictures of all the beautiful things here in Arizona in hopes to entice you here. If this doesn't work then you are hopeless.


We had dinner in town and noticed this sign. Do small town people have a great sense of humor or are they slow to get it?


After the sun went down it got cold real fast. Unbearable I thought, but we stuck it out. We had 3 comforters with us so we were pretty warm in the tent. If you stuck your head out though, forget it.

We made it through the night and packed up this morning and headed back. It was really pretty up there, totally different than what we see here. However, as we winded back down to the valley, I was happy to see the saguaros again.

-Nina-