Snow Day 2012

The end of days never came. Winter did. Christmas has come and gone. And we have house guests for the week.  I've been meaning to take the dogs to play in the snow for weeks now.  Winter covered northern Arizona in a nice blanket recently.  Now was the time.

We drove north, through Miami, and headed towards Roosevelt Lake.  It was a very calm day.

Northward to SR87. Once we hit 87, we could see the mountain peaks were dusted with white. Our initial plan was to go all the way to Flagstaff, but the closer we got to Payson, we realized that we could cut the drive short and play near the Mogollon Rim.

As we neared Sitgreaves National Forest, the snow cover was perfect for a romp.

House guest, Harley, wasn't as impressed as Elly was.

With his big sister, Bella.

There was running, playing, and lots and lots of falling.

And of course, Rommel's new favorite.....snowball fetch!

Pretty posing pups.

And busy, non-posing pups.

Defending his fort.

While my dogs are expert portrait posers....the house guests...not so much.

We exhausted this area when we realized that we were behind a neighborhood.  We loaded up and made our way to the Ranger station for a potty break. Only to realize that the Ranger station was closed and unplowed.  Luckily the potty was still open and the flat recreation areas made for some knee deep snow.

Of course, we played here some more....

The house guests were unimpressed, tired and cold.

Elly and Rommel were in heaven.

The sun was starting to sink in the sky. Back into the Jeep with our tired four-some.  We considered going the back way home through Young.  So we made the turn off of 260 and met a snow covered road.  We decided not to go the whole way but had some daylight to kill and wanted to explore.

The snowy sunset was spectacular.

The sun finally sank below the horizon and the temperature plummeted to 18 degrees.  It was time to go home.

Today was fantastic.  I missed snow. It was amazing to see how much joy my dogs got out of playing in it.  Snow is a close second in Rommel's mind with water play #1. I now have four dogs, curled up on the floor after a great day of play.