Last night, I decided we should drive up to Strawberry, Arizona... which is a small town about 100 miles north of Phoenix... to go to their "Strawberry Festival". So, I got up at 4AM, and Jasmine insisted on getting up with me.... and she was very grumpy:). We left at about 6AM, and since it was a 3 hour drive, we got there at 9AM. Luckily, Jazz slept the whole way. The town is just one main street... which had a few vendors selling jewelry. Not a strawberry to be seen, except a few kind of old looking strawberries at the Senior Center. We had one chocolate covered strawberry. They had advertised miniature horse rides, other rides, a bouncy house, etc... but none of that was to be found anywhere. So, overall, the Strawberry Festival was a disappointment. We did go to the Strawberry Quilting Contest... which is judged by the viewers.. so we voted on the quilts that we liked the best. For brunch, we went to HP's Place.. which was about the only restaurant around. It was obvious that they were not prepared for the line of people wanting to get in. Jasmine became a little less irritable after she had her bowl of oatmeal. After leaving HP's Hole, we drove south to Payson and took a small hike... about 200 feet:).. thru the forest. It was so nice to smell the pines, show Jazzy the pine cones, and take a little walk. It was 20 degrees cooler there than where we live. We also looked at various campgrounds for future travels. All in all, it was a fun day, even though we spent most of it driving in the car.
