The park we are working in borders the Tonto National Forest - indeed some of the archery range we are parked by is actually in the national forest land.
When we were here last time we explored Tonto very little - basically just heading up over the hill that our park is on to see what was on the other side.
I want to see more of it now that we are here longer - so this afternoon after church and lunch we jumped into the Adventuremobile for a longer ride. We heard tell of Prickly Pear Ice Cream at a place called Tortilla Flats.
Tortilla Flats is just past Canyon Lake and started life as campground for gold prospectors and later served as a stagecoach and freight stop during the construction of the Roosevelt Dam - which was further than we wanted to go today.
The drive was quite pretty - possibly the best we’ve done in Arizona. There were just enough curves and hills for interesting scenery but not so much elevation gain as to make MsBoyink ill. While we are not always moved by artificial lakes created by dams this one was nicely set against the rock and with the vast population of Saguaro Cactus made for some great photos.
We had our Prickly Pear - but in gelato form rather than ice cream. It was quite tasty! We sauntered around a bit, found a fridge magnet for our collection, and returned home to supper ready in the crockpot (always such a nice thing!).