Dankworth Pond

Happy Holidays,
  I think we are finally ready for Christmas. The group here went out for a nice Christmas dinner. We went to a nearby steakhouse and had good food and camaraderie.(sorry we forgot the camera)
 We did get some fresh snow on the mountain, I told Wendy we should drive up and make a snowman. Maybe that's what we will do on Christmas. Otherwise it will be a quiet day for us, chatting with the kids and hitting the hot tub. We will cook up a small ham on X-mas eve and a breakfast casserole for X-mas morning.

 The park has been pretty slow with only a couple campers a day coming in. I guess that is the norm this time of year.

  It is a good time to spruce up the park. The cabins all got fresh stain and we continue to paint electrical pedestals and posts. Wendy and I also did some trim painting in the visitor center.
 Last Saturday we had a grand reopening of our Dankworth Ponds. This is a small day use area located 3 miles from Roper Lake.  Dankworth had been closed for two years in which time the drained and dredged removing the over crowded cattails. This was a joint effort of different agencies so the reopening ceremony was to recognize those involved.

We had a super weather day for it, 65 sunny with no wind. Wendy and I went to man the gate, although it was a free event we were to greet and keep a headcount for the day. We had a pretty good turnout of about 100 people. They also were offering a archery beginner class, fishing clinic and our junior ranger program, made for a good family day.

  Our day off adventure took us to Cluff Ponds. Located only about 15 miles from Safford. It is operated by AZ Fish and Game. It has hiking, primitive camping and a good sized stocked pond. The area looked to us as not getting much attention. They had a unmanned visitor center with no relevant information on the area. Wendy had taken a picture of a sign when we got to the area and we found ourselves bringing up the pic to find out where we were. The trails didn't look marked so with no map we just drove around. I did try to fish for a bit but no luck today.

 I guess sometimes we find great places and sometimes it turns out to be just a day out. Like anything you never know unless you try.