Down. Set. Blue 42. Hut. Hut.

The alarm did not go off at 5 am this morning, even though it was supposed to. I imagine this is because the Beck was In Charge, and in lieu of her usual method of hitting the snooze button repeatedly, she just set it for 5:20. No foul, just later than expected. And you can't really blame her, given that she's been waking up around that time to start her days ultra-early and get in workouts before trucking up to Dove Valley to work twelve hours. Yikes. So it goes. We clambered out of bed, Beck took the dogs out and we got ready to go about our day...

But wait, you undoubtedly ask, why were we getting up so early on a Saturday morning? Ah, enter the planning styles of Christina. She spent a day at a spa a couple of weekends ago and at a resort last weekend, and somewhere amidst all the lounging she decided she needed to "get up off my butt more." She looked up a local hiking club - more on that later - and found a group hike that was happening this morning at Mogollon Rim, a group of trails up in the mountains about 30 miles east of the bustling metropolis of Payson, AZ. So even though we have mountains that are no more than 10 minutes from our respective homes, even though Christina rather legendarily failed to make it from the car to the base of the mountain in her last hiking endeavor, we met outside our condo at 6:15 AM to drive to Payson for a 4.5 mile hike. This would actually turn out to be a pretty solid idea - long drive aside, Payson sits at about 5000 feet in elevation, and the trail we hiked even higher than that, so the long journey meant a reprieve from 110 degree days. We got to hike in the 80s (meaning we felt pleasantly warm, like Jane Fonda in a leotard and headband) and hang out in shade in the 70s (getting to feel as cool as Jane Fonda in a leather jacket). Awesome.

(As a side note, last night the weatherman's 7 day forecast read 101-100-101-102-100-101-100, and I never thought I would be so psyched for a seven day stretch of 100 degree temperatures. Ladies and gents, it's a veritable cold front - the monsoon season is upon us, so nicer days (101 IS nice, I promise) and Stormy Weather in the near future).

So we piled in DC's CR-V and headed east on Shea to Target to meet up with our hiking group. All of the people were older than us and the leader had a dog he claimed was a miniature pincher runt but our resident animal expert thought looked quite a bit more like a chihuahua mutt. The dog was pretty impressive, though,a s it was about 10 inches tall and made the hike along with the rest of us. Props to Amber. We agreed to meet at the McD's in Payson for breakfast. So the drive to Target was 20 minutes, it was about another hour to Payson, and another 40 minutes to the hike site - a lot of driving, gleefully (is there any other way) provided by Danimal. Fortunately, the scenery is gorgeous - here's a glimpse of the cactus-laden highways and mountainscapes the adorn the twisty highways all the way to the hikesite:

So after a stopby at McDonald's and a hair-pulling decision by Beck and Christina to cave and purchase breakfast, we headed over to the site. Beautiful, very flat path through a fairly densely wooded area that provided a lot of shade and coolness. We had tons of views (like this one)

and all in all had a fun time trekking along. We stopped for a break about halfway and then headed back via a more open, even flatter route. That's when these started creeping in...

Rain; thunder & lightning; bears. They were looming. Beck initially claimed that this "was just part of the risk of hiking;" DC & I did not share this fatalistic sentiment. We were, roughly, non-plussed. Fortunately we were close to the end of the hike, because we were crossing the road that led back to the parking lot. Our hiking leader (who shall remain nameful), Rich, crossed the road and kept us going along the twisty trail. People behind us in the group stopped and pointed down the road but we, being idiots, followed our leader. And about a quarter mile later, when the storm clouds were knocking on our collective doorstep, we stopped AGAIN and consulted with some fellow hikers about whether we had missed our turn. But they said, "Oh, Rich has been here before, let's follow him." So like a devolved lemming's retarded cousin, we did.

So naturally, it started raining. We were not happy. Dan decided that God was punishing him for something; there were several biblical references and demands alongthe lines of us, "If you're going to plague us, at least throw down some locusts." At one point Dan pondered whether his teenage Playboy collection was to blame for our fate. Still, we pressed on, eventually reaching "first-borns" in our plague trash-talk. And then it started to lightning - and then we met a family of hikers who told us they had just seen a bear - and THEN, it started to hail. Really small, easy to confuse with big drops style hail at first, but then some decent BB and small pea-sized ice pellets starting ringing down on our heads. It was around this time that Rich decided that indeed, we had gone the wrong way for twenty minutes. SO we turned around, and Beck went into speed-hike mode. We got soaked and pelted / welted. Terrible. We got back to the road ater dancing through rain puddles in time to see that indeed, the parking lot was about 100 yards away from where we had crossed earlier. ARGH. A nice guy from our hiking group picked up Christina and Beck in a truck and drove them to the lot while Dan and I ran. (This, incidentally, reminded me of the last time I ran in the rain). We made it, didn't melt and all of our camera equipment was fine, but we were none too pleased with Mr. Big And. Beck and Christina, of course, pulled off the soaked look swimmingly:

So we made the 40 minute drive back to Payson and hit up McD's (again) for lunch. Beck tried to steal my McFlurry and the ice cream gods gave her brain freeze in retribution. HA! We ate at the town park and took in a little little league baseball before driving back to Scottsdale.

Good times - we took a nap break and then reconvened at Dan and Christina's for grilling, margaritas / mojitos and a viewing first of a Gorillaz concert (huh?) and then Borat, which DC had never seen. Hilarious. Good day, and we didn't even need to tune into ESPN for 3 hours to catch 12 minutes of L.A.'s new darling boy.

Here's the full photoset from today's journey (click the pic below). Keep in mind those cactus and landscape pics were snapped from a moving vehicle and through glass (darkly). I think they came out pretty well, considering. So a good Saturday in Sunny Azz, good work by Christina organizing the trip and F minus for Rich, who had he beed able to get us back to our cars in a more direct fashion would have kept us out of the rain and hail entirely. Ugh.