Unfortunately, our hot spot providing our internet has crapped out. Straight Talk (would not recommend, very poor tech support) was to send a replacement, learned today it hasn't been shipped yet, could be another week or so. I'm at the library now but not sure how to update blog using my iPad. (Erin?)

Our first week (Jan 4-10/2015) has been nothing short of awesome. We had a couple good hikes and found some great jeep trails. The town of Roosevelt flourished in the early 1900's due to the construction of the Roosevelt Dam. About all that's left of Roosevelt is a forest service office, a marina and a few homes. We hiked a trail that went past this cemetery. Buried here are Roosevelt residents from the early 1900's. Wooden crosses, piles of stone and a few monuments mark the graves. Lake Roosevelt created from the Roosevelt Dam is a big attraction is this area. Fishing, boating, camping and tons of trails, this is mostly national forest land so there's lots of area to explore. We're only about 15 miles from Lake Roosevelt.     

Too close to a prickly pear cactus.

I never tire of saguaros, they're majestic. Lake Roosevelt in the background. 

Crossing Tonto Creek.

 Tonto Creek runs thru this little burb of Punkin Center. We're careful of these crossings...watched a few others go thru before we did so we knew how deep and best path to take. The creek is running from the snow melt up in the high country, there was a foot of snow in Payson on New Year's Eve. There are  several houses and people living on the back side of the creek, the school and businesses on what I'd call the front side. There is no bridge, when the creek is running full, it floods, the school closes and they call it a creek day. (No snow days here.) Locals tell us they've been trying to get a bridge built for years.

HIKING - Salome Wilderness Area in the Tonto National Forest. Beautiful hike into a very deep canyon. Steep canyon walls, waterfalls and bamboo growing in some of the pools. People rappel some of these canyon walls to get to pristine pools of water. Not us. The hike out was strenuous, about 3 mi. up hill, we were tired. Going down was a lot easier!!

On our way out of the Salome Area, evening setting in, Roosevelt Lake in background. It's a 4-wheel drive road to get to the trail head. 

This little bar/grill seems to be the main attraction in Punkin Center, and about the only attraction in PC.  It's quite busy on weekends, have heard good things about the food, will definitely be checking it out. An easy walk from Olaf, our home on wheels. 

Our little RV park. We're on the far end beyond the white vehicle. We like the smallness of the park and the rural feel.

A view from the park, you can see the Punkin Bar/grill to the left. And yes, they spell it Punkin here. 

Straight ahead is the M & M Diner which we ate at when the girls were here, very good food and such friendly people. 

Our site.

We moved from Winslow to Punkin Center Saturday (1/3), originally planned to move on Friday but a winter snow storm resulted in road closures in the higher elevations.
Punkin Center is an interesting little burb...low key, lots of old trucks, hunters, quads, jeeps and RV's...very friendly people.
Happy to say all systems on our RV (Olaf) are working. Still have a lot of organizing to do so we can find things.
We loved the sunny 60+ weather today, hard to believe it's January. This area (which includes Punkin Center) is known as Tonto Basin, it's full of hiking and jeepin trails. We did both today, hiked a bit and went jeepin. We set out to find the remains of an old military encampment up in the hills but no luck...found out from our neighbor that we were on the right trail but turned around too soon, will try again another day.
It's very scenic here, mountains in every direction. We can see snow on some of the peaks and saguaro cactus down here in the desert. We're living the dream!!

Looking for Camp Reno.