Sabino Canyon...aka "The place I spent my senior year..."

I love this place. It holds so many memories for me and everytime I'm there I am in awe of the beauty of the desert. Now, don't get me wrong. I am definitely escaping the desert heat for a few days this summer to sit on a beach and I already went north to get out of the inevitable heat we are about to face. But I love this place. I remember going with my mom on the weekends when we would ride the tram to the top and walk the entire way down, frequently ending up in the parking lot with wet socks and shoes from that last bridge at the bottom that seems to always have water running over it. It became a bit of strategy to try to figure out how to get to the other side with dry shoes!

And I'm not joking about it's where I spent my senior year...and a good portion of my junior year as well. On long days, especially Wednesdays, when the weather was nice and the sun was warming up and when there was no way you were going to find me in an hour and a half long class of computers with Mr. Story, I would chose to simply spend that time at Sabino Canyon. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We simply wore our suits (with cover-up or t-shirt and shorts) to 1st period and then leave after and come back in time for 5th period. Great plan, really. The monitors frequently waved to us as we drove away...the perks of being a straight A student a LONG, LONG time ago :-) I even have the ditch notices sent to my parents scrapbooked! "Dear Mr./Mrs. Markle, Your son/daughter has missed 'blank' number of classes in the last quarter. We are concerned that your son/daughter may be at risk for failing in her class." LOL! Of course this is also back in the days when phones had cords attached to the walls, there were no automated systems to call parents to report absenses, the schools had no fences to keep kids in or bad people out, and my parents worked so I always got the mail first.

We often stopped and got Eegee's on the way to eat while we were there and had found a back trail where we didn't even have to go by the main entrance to get where we were going. Our spot always had water and fantastic rocks on which to lay our towels and eventually ourselves with the bikinis we hid from our mothers. We all became rather good at traversing the sparsely situated rocks to again, prevent wet shoes and socks as we always had to get to the OTHER side of the water...it's always better on the other side, right? The people changed, not always the same group went, but it was always a nice retreat. Quiet, serene, and beautiful.

So, I wanted to take my kids. It's part of my story and I love sharing those bits with them (another bit we shared is we took them to New York Pizza after...remember when a slice and a soda was only $1.25? Now it's $3.00!!!) I didn't get many pictures, but the memory will stay with us. We took the tram to the top as I always did with my mom, and began the walk down. We stopped at a "beach" on the way and let the kids skip rocks and explore and get wet and try to traverse the algae-ridden rocks. They were definitely not as good as I once was and all of them ended up soaking wet. I believe the guide on the way in said the water that day was around 55 degrees. They were cold :-) We didn't walk the WHOLE way down...amongst the 7 kids there arose some dissension about that original plan and the darn kids were hungry (for some reason they think they need to eat every day...like 3 times even!!!) so we caught the tram for the remainder and thus avoided the overflowing bridge at the bottom. (Another disclaimer...very possible that many of our pictures and experiences will include my Ben. What can I say? He's a good, good man...and we heart him!) Even without wet shoes in the parking lot, it was a fabulous outing. So glad we went.