A dozen years between the events of this day and the moment I’m sitting down in an attempt to blog about it is stretching my ability to make things up. It’s June 2023, and I’m seriously at a loss to fill in the details here, but all the same, I want the photos and the date my daughter and I were traveling to join the rest of my posts. Familiarity with locations will help somewhat, such as this being an overlook in Fountain Hills looking to the south over Tempe and Mesa.

From the photo that follows, I can guess that we are somewhere near Fort McDowell; other than that, I’ve got nothing.

Of interest here is Arizona Route 87 was being expanded and is under construction on the left. What vantage point I took this photo from is a mystery to me.

I want to say this is Sycamore Creek, but I could be wrong.

As the title of the post states, Jessica and I are going north, and while I know the destination as I’ve already prepped all the photos, other than her seeing something firsthand, I can’t say there was any other purpose to our drive.

Spring is in the air, but of course it is; it’s the end of March.

Which also means that winter is lingering.

I’d recognize these pine trees on the Mogollon Rim somewhere near Payson any day.

As she rolled up this snowball, I hoped she hadn’t collected any yellow bits before sticking her tongue out to lick the thing.

I think I know where we are.

This can only be heading into Sedona, which means we are taking the scenic route north of here; why I didn’t shoot any photos of Oak Creek Canyon is yet another mystery regarding this outing.

This is not the only time I’ve shot this photo from the John Wesley Powell offramp south of Flagstaff.

So, here we are at the OARS warehouse. OARS is the company that took Caroline and me down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon last year. The likely reason for us to come up here is that I was knee-deep writing my book about our experience, and I didn’t need much excuse at all to pay a visit and commune with a dory (pictured behind Jessica). Following this scenic, circuitous journey for my pilgrimage, we would have headed home down the freeway as this was the end of photos for the day.