Careful, readers… horribly cheesy dangerous puns ahead!

On this rainy March day, and Travelin’ Thursday at that, I thought I’d reflect on a recent sunny adventure in Payson, Arizona. About a 90 minute drive from Phoenix, Payson was our destination due to its proximity to the Mogollon Rim. (After asking literally dozens of locals, we are now somewhat comfortable and confident that the pronunciation is something like “MA-gee-un.” But don’t quote me on that…

We spent some time thrifting/ poking around on Payson’s Main Street, and we stopped for a bite at Macky’s Grill (delightfully tacky western decor and all), but the majority of our Payson adventures were spent at Tonto Natural Bridge State Park.

Enter today’s title. What “rocks” about this place? Well, the Tonto Natural Bridge is made of Travertine, a type of limestone, and I believe it is the largest Travertine bridge in the world. That DOES rock, doesn’t it! You know what else rocks? At the top of this park there is a waterfall that cascades down across the side of the bridge (seen below as the “hole” in the rock), and on the sunny day we visited it was creating a lovely rainbow for us! We hiked down to the bottom where more daring visitors were standing beneath the waterfall and jumping rocks in the creek. As we hiked up to the top we found tiny mountain wildflowers, coniferous trees, and even some form of bamboo or hollow stackable plant that we used to play with in our Brainerd area lake cabin (if you know what that is called, in the photo below, let me know!)

All in all it was a beautiful trip with an enjoyable drive through central Arizona. Enjoy the photos!

Do you have any travel plans coming up? Are there special places to hike where you live?

Meri