Mike was away for work last week. I made the executive decision that we'd go camping when he got back. Where? Somewhere north of where we live.
Saturday rolled around and we loaded into the Jeep and made our way to Globe. Just south of Roosevelt Lake, we turned down our trusty 288 and made our way up. A few miles up, Mike said "wonder where that goes". The map showed a dirt road heading straight down to the lake on the north side. The plan, lunch at the water before heading into the pines.
Surprisingly, the road actually did go right to the water.
After lunch we donned our suits (because ALWAYS travel with bathing suits) and went for a dip. The water temperature was perfect.
The breeze turned into wind and the water became choppy. Everyone but Rommel decided to get out of the water. He lounged in the surf for quite some time. The temperature was livable and we decided to stay for the night.
We had dinner during a killer sunset. But the second the sun set, the wind died. And then the bugs. We aren't sure what they were, some sort of tiny grasshopper type thing. Not bitey, but they came in the millions. We hurried into the trailer and suffered all night. There was not amount of swatting, they got into the trailer and kept us up all night.
We "woke" early to a swarm of biblical proportions. I didn't think to take video but....wow. Millions of them decided the Foxwing was the place to be. We packed in a hurry to a still and silent lake. Exhausted and without coffee, we scurried off the beach.
Mike wasn't ready to head home yet so we decided to continue up 288 towards Young and hit the top loop of Cherry Creek Road. AZBDR reported the lower loop was closed and rerouted due to last seasons fire damage, but we checked that off the list a few years back anyway.
A few miles in, the "Expert Rating" became apparent.
I'm going to gush over our teardrop for a second.... This baby will GO ANYWHERE we point it. While this technical section wasn't very long, it had some decent rock work and drops and made it through like a CHAMP. /endgushing.
This part of Cherry Creek road was pretty rocky throughout. We noticed (especially in the above shown section) that there wasn't much tire sign, and it was only UTV tire sign.
At a wide point in the trail, we stopped at a natural spring and Mike made us coffee and oatmeal. Coffee was long over due.
During each stop, we kept finding more of the plague bugs. Lesson learned, don't camp AT the lake. Enjoy it and flee before the sun sets.
We pushed on towards Young. The road progressively improved. Even still, we only saw two UTVs the whole day. It was pretty rad.
Our impromptu and unplanned trips are usually the ones we remember fondly. We had a day on the water and a day on the trail. Can't beat that.
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