Fish hatchery

When I told my dad that Katie and I were going camping near Payson, in the Tonto National Forest, he remembered having gone to the area years ago to work on a fish hatchery. He suggested that while we were there we could visit the hatchery. I'm sure he was kidding. But the trailhead we went to first, that turned out to be closed (see Katie's post below), was near the hatchery. So we stopped by. It was Katie's first fish hatchery visit. I hadn't been to one since I was a kid. It was kind of cool. They had a visitors center with information about the history of the hatchery, and displays of some of the large fish that had been caught in the nearby lake. Anyway, here's photographic evidence that we went to visit a fish hatchery my dad once worked on while we were on vacation.

April and May Photos

Now you can view more photos of our adventures!

View photos from March. Includes moving in and our first big rain.

View photos from April. Includes Joanne's trip out here, Katie's trip to Philadelphia, and the Springfield boy's get together.

View photos from May. Includes our camping trip.

We also have an album of all the progress pictures of the house.

The World's Largest Fountain

On our way home yesterday we were driving along and noticed a huge fountain in the distance. We couldn't figure out what it was but when I pulled out the map I saw "World's Tallest Fountain" on it. We knew Fountain Hills, a suburb of Phoenix/Scottsdale had a large fountain but we didn't know it was that large; so we pulled the car over and stopped to see it. The fountain runs for 15 minutes on the hour and we caught one of the shows. The fountain reportedly gets as tall as 500 feet in the air.

Camping

We just got back from our first camping trip. Don't be fooled by the post date. We came home a day early. There were forest fires in the area that are under control but unfortunately all of the hiking trails were closed and no fires or charcoal grills were allowed. With not much to do we decided to head home Sunday evening instead of Monday morning. We still had a great time and saw some amazing sights.

Keeping up with the cats

Because we are one step away from being crazy cat people.

Getting ready to camp

We had a campout in our family room today. We needed to make sure our tent was ready for this weekend. As long as the wildfires don't stop our plans, we will be camping in Payson this weekend.