No matter how well organized you are and how smoothly it goes, flying on an airplane is not my favorite activity. It felt insanely late when we finally got settled so it felt insanely early when we were up the next day.
On the official itinerary (yes, I made one, but no it wasn't laminated) this was a day marked "Lounge - Hike." We had arrived after sunset and I wanted to see some cacti, dang it, so off we went to Lake Pleasant.
Lake Pleasant is one of those enormous reservoirs that people are actually allowed to play in. Many of our reservoirs (I'm looking at you Cedar River Watershed and Chester Morse Lake) are strictly off-limits. Lake Pleasant was open to boats and visitors and camping.
And burros. Wild burros. I know. I was stoked, too.
We found our way to the visitor center and saw the local wildlife (cacti, scorpion, tarantula, gila monster) and came to the conclusion that everything here was trying to hurt us. Even the sun would burn holes in our skin if we weren't careful. (Thankfully, it was mostly cloudy.)
After being amazed at the cactus and failing to realize we'd see one or two or a billion more on our trip we wandered down the short Roadrunner Trail. It was under a mile and mostly flat, but did get us face to face with a tiny lizard that didn't appear to want to eat us. It might have been part of a conspiracy to lure us into a false sense of security, though.
Since it was so short I allowed myself to be conned into a side trip to a peninsula with a tiny hill on it. It was great seeing Clara and Henry scramble up the side of the hill, stopping to admire the different environment we found ourselves in. Less ideal when they pulled out their phones at the top. Clara shot a bunch of pictures, but I'm pretty sure Henry was trying to play Clumsy Ninja.
We saw an egret or a heron fishing along the shore and met the rest of the party at the far end of the trail. Before we left the area altogether, we stopped to letterbox and dropped off a hitchhiker. (Remember that a hitchhiker is a small stamp and logbook that moves from one letterbox to the next. We found this one on Mailbox Peak.)
I saw no wild burros, but it was a great way to get acquainted with the very different flora and fauna of the southwest. Our 10 day trip was looking like it was going to be a good one.
