Western Backroads

Welcome to Virgil and Marcia's blog. We take many weekend trips to places in Arizona and the Southwest. This is a place where family and friends can read about where we've been and what we've seen. Enjoy!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Camping in the Pines and Blue Ridge Resevoir

Camping? What's that? We've been busy with many other things for the last few months and camping has been pushed to the bottom of our priorities. Well, not this weekend. Marcia and I packed up and headed to Payson Saturday morning for a weekend in the tall pines. From Payson we traveled north on AZ 87 to the west end of FR 300 (Rim Road) and found a nice, quiet spot to setup camp.

When we stepped out of the Jeep, the breezy 54 degree air sent us digging for our coats immediatly. Thoughts of a nice, warm campfire crossed our minds as we noticed there were some branches nearby that previous campers had left piled up. Marcia grabbed the hatchet and we broke some of them down into smaller pieces to burn later. There were also two larger logs that she proceeded to chop the bark off of. I was able to get her to take a break and pose while showing off her new Armentrout University t-shirt that her dad bought for her.





Once things were situated, we headed further north on AZ 87 to Blue Ridge Resevoir. We followed FR 751 all the way past the boat launch to the dam where it becomes a dead end. It was almost noon so we ate some sandwiches for lunch wile enjoying the scenery.









Marcia decided to do a little tight-rope walking. Too bad I didn't get the camera turned on in time to catch her out in the middle. She made it look easy and even stopped to drink her coke a few times along the way.



From Blue Ridge Resevoir, we returned to AZ 87 and headed further north to FR 95. This was the beginning of the Rim Road/General Crook Trail Loop. It is a fairly long, but easy gravel road through the Coconino National Forest. Passing over East Clear Creek and up and down the hills surrounded by pine trees was about as peacful of a drive as you can get.