One of the things that I love most about Arizona is our weather - specifically around Thanksgiving.  When other parts of the country are digging themselves out of their first snowfall of the year, we're usually outdoors, cooking our turkey on the barbecue and enjoying a warm, sunny 70º day. 

This year, the Verley clan decided to take full advantage of the beautiful weather by having Thanksgiving dinner outdoors.  Bill and Erika announced that they were going to take their motor home out to Cave Creak Regional Park, where they planned to barbecue a turkey and all of the fixings.  Everyone was welcome to come and camp with them for the weekend.

Although we weren't able to camp with them (because I had to work the day after Thanksgiving), John and Mary and I promised that we would join them for Thanksgiving dinner. 

Since I really didn't want to sit around drinking beer all morning long, I suggested to John that, before joining the family for dinner, we should go on a hike somewhere in the park.  John thought that it was a great idea, and he knew just the trail we should hike: the Overton Trail: a 3.1 mile long loop, part of which we had done before as part of the Go John-Overton Loop (a hike that we had done in January 2001).  It would be the perfect length for Mary to hike, and it would be a great way to get some exercise before eating the big feast.

We arrived at the park at 8:00 Thanksgiving morning.  After paying our entry fee, we drove along the main road to the Overton Trailhead, located just past the turnoff for the campground.  We parked the Jeep at the trailhead; then, once we were geared up, we started on our hike.

The first part of the trail took us along the main road, past the playground, to the Go John Trailhead, about 0.5 miles away.  We cut across the parking area and continued our hike along the Go John Trail, on what would be the first leg of the clockwise loop of that particular trail.  This part of the trail, which we had never done before, immediately started uphill, gaining about 250 feet in elevation in 0.9 miles.  It was slow-going for us, because we were hiking at the pace of a four year-old, but we did make it to the top of the hill in about a half an hour. 

We stopped to take a break at the pass; there, we sat down on a big boulder so that Mary could rest her little feet before continuing our hike. (That was more of a climb than Mary was used to, so she was a little bit tired after that.) 

After we left the pass, we connected to the Overton Trail, and from there, it was all downhill.  While there were a few sections of the trail that descended steeply, most of the trail followed the contour of the backside of the mountain in a very gently descent. During this part of the hike, we spent a lot of time looking for horse apples, because finding horse apples distracted Mary enough to keep her interested in the hike.

"Eww!  Horse poopy!" she shouted, every time we came to a huge stinking mound of horse apples.  And then, she would giggle hysterically, as if that was the funniest thing she had ever seen.  We're not sure why she is so amused by horse apples, but if it gets her to hike more than three miles, we're grateful to see it on the trail.

At 2.3 miles, the trail left the county park; we passed through a gate, where there was a sign indicating that we had left the Maricopa County Park system and were now on State Trust Land.  At that point, we could finally see the campground.  That was when we started looking to see if we could find Bill and Erika's motor home.  There were a couple of motor homes that looked like they could be it, but we were just too far away to tell for sure.

The trail soon re-entered the county park and soon intersected with the Clay Mine Trail, at mile marker 2.9.  Although John had considered taking that spur trail to the campground, we decided not to because we would still have to get the Jeep and bring it to the campground.  After all, I had two fresh-baked pies in there that I had made for Thanksgiving dessert!  I was not about to let them go to waste in the back of the Jeep!

With only about a tenth of a mile to go, and with the Jeep in site, we encountered a family of four with kids who were much older than Mary, and they were surprised to hear that our little four year old had just completed a three-mile trail.  The mother of the group made sure to point that out to her kids, telling them, "See?  That little girl just hiked that whole trail!  Why can't you?"  I just smiled; I'm glad to know that our child had inspired the older kids to get active.

It was almost 11:00 a.m. when we completed our hike; after throwing our hiking gear back into the Jeep, we drove into the campground and found Bill and Erika's motor home.  Everyone was already gathered there: the Guckenburgs, the Burchetts (Bill and Erika's neighbors), and Bill and Erika.  We were later joined by John's cousin Michael Fasci and his two kids, Michael Ryan and Katie. 

We spent the afternoon eating, drinking and enjoying the beautiful, sunny Thanksgiving day.  It was truly one of the best ways to spend Thanksgiving in Arizona!

Return to Naked in the Woods.