Search for Saguaro

Happy holidays,
 Trying to get in the spirit of the season, we fashioned a snowman and reindeer for outside. We got wood from the woodpile, used some old paint and for a $1.00 hat- walla! Wendy also decorated nicely inside.

  We attended the local light parade on Sat. night. Even with chilly 45 degree temp there was a good turnout. It was a short parade, probably over in 30 min. We thought it was decent but were surprised to no candy being throw. Whats a parade without some candy for the kids? Oh I suppose some rule made up for safety, a sign of the times.

  Our weeks are starting to fly by, we are about halfway through our stint here. We have begun talking about what we'll do after we leave here. We should have a good amount of time to explore Arizona. We finish here Feb. 1 and will not start in South Dakota til mid May.
  We took a  drive the other day visiting Tonto National Monument. This was about 100 mi. northwest of Safford in the Tonto National Forest.  It was nice and cool day for a ride we got all excited seeing our first saguaro cactus in the area. Soon they were everywhere. These magnificent cacti can grow to 50 feet. Saguaro take between 50 and 100 years to grow their first arm and some never grow arms. You really get the wild west feeling driving through them.

  The monument contains two large cliff dwellings. One is a 1/2 mile hike through a cactus garden, while the other is shown only with a ranger led tour. In 1907 President Roosevelt declared them a monument to protect them from destruction.

www.nps.gov/tont/index.htm

 Also along the route is the Theodore Roosevelt Lake ( 3rd largest reservoir in AZ) and the Roosevelt bridge. The bridge is the longest two-lane single-span steel arch bridge in North America.