I Think The Holidays Are Coming.

After our hike on Saturday, we showered, ate, and then drove down to Scottsdale for the 5th Annual Holiday Pet Festival at Westworld. The event and parking was free, and I'd always wondered what this huge facility looked like. Yep, it was huge.



They had huge dogs too. The event is mainly an adoption event, so lots and lots of rescues were there.

Including Fearless Kitty Rescue, so we went and gave them a shout out.

The agility course was kind of cool. Those blurs are dogs. They were fast!



And then it was time for the Stroll in the Glow in downtown Fountain Hills. The town is celebrating it's 25th anniversary, the fact that the main town median is new and improved, and the fact that the holiday season has started.

Just going through the tunnel to get from the lot to the avenue was cool.

They even had horse rides.



Music (If you're on Facebook, you can hear the singing cowboys on Sofrita's page).

A live nativity scene, including llama.



Carolers,

Photo "borrowed" from Amy Burnett's Facebook page

and of course, Santa.



We couldn't resist this photo, although we had no idea who this character was. We googled it when we got home. We had seen the movie Frozen, but forgot about him.

Some highlights.

  

And the fountain!


And this is how we do the holidays in Fountain Hills.

The Bees Knees

This weekend's hike was in the Usery Mountain Regional Park in Mesa - just 25 minutes away. I'm not sure why we'd never been to this area before, but it was pretty cool. The trail we took was the 3-mile round trip Wind Cave Trail.

We went with the Sonoran Conservancy of Fountain Hills again, just like last weekend. Again, a decent sized group.

This time we set a pretty good pace, and split up depending on everyone's speed. It starts off pretty easy.



And then the switchbacks start. They're surprisingly long, so even though you go up the 812-foot elevation to 2,840-foot, it's not as hard as it could be. People of all ages were doing it, including boy scout/girl scout troops.



Guess what? You can see the fountain in Fountain Hills! I'm not sure there's been a hike we've been on yet that didn't have it off in the distance.



We also knew where Phoenix was at all times, thanks to the big painted sign on the mountain.



Once at the top, you can go to the right and scramble up to the tippy top. We snuck over while we waited for others to catch up. The view was quite nifty.



If you head to the left, you get to the cave, which is really an alcove.



The views were great from there too.



The mist made things interesting.

Phoenix had the usual smog hanging over top.

If you're allergic to bees, bee-ware (get it?!) because there is a hive up here. It was cold, so they weren't very active. I'd like to think someone checks every once in awhile to make sure they're not Africanized.



We went down ahead of everyone to keep our own pace and goof off.


 

Very fun. We're going to go back with a packed lunch on a sunny day sometime and do the scramble to the top. We also learned of a bunch of hikes we haven't done yet, so guess what's on the agenda next weekend?