i've seen this room, i've walked this floor

We finally got out on an overnight this past weekend and goodness I've missed it. We left after work with Cam and Casi (our token hiking friends. Actually, kind of our token everything friends.) We got there around 9:00 pm and started hiking. It was an easy 2 miles to where we set up camp and the evening was perfect. 75 degrees, an insane amount of stars, the most picturesque campsite. The next day we packed up and headed 4-5 miles up and down (and up and down) to hell's hole, a good size creek flowing through the bottom of the canyon. The scenery of this hike is incredible. The road we drove to get there is called "desert to tall pines" and the hike is essentially that. You start in the pines and end in the desert. So, the water in the canyon is incredible because it feels so rare to see that much water in the desert. There is enough to form a few good size waterfalls, where we stopped for lunch and swimming. The hike out was b r u t a l. The brush was so thick and our legs were covered in scratches and the majority of the hike is switchbacks and we were headed up rather than down at the hottest part of the day. It was rough country, to say the least. Lando turned 28 on Wednesday and the hike out he said "if this is was 28 feels like, I don't want to be 28..." He blames in on age, I blame it on Arizona terrain. The weather was nice to us though, and we got a few storm clouds in the hot afternoon.  The absolute best part of this trip was the wild vegetation. There was mint growing all around our campsite and we made mint tea to go with our breakfast. There were meadows of blackberries around the creek. And we stumbled across a wild peach tree. In Arizona! That is pretty incredible for the desert, I think Landon ate 4 of them. There is usually at least one time on a hike where I'm mad at Lando because he prefers to forge his own trail, which usually means I end up getting hurt. But regardless, there is no where I'd rather be than outdoors with Lando.