A Guy Walks into a Bar and Two Months Later Finds Himself on the Apache Trail

Burnt Corral Campground - Apache Trail, Tonto National Forest

A little over a month ago on a Saturday night, I sat on a bar stool at my local spot. I was there reflecting on what had been going on in my life over the past few weeks, when an older man sat down next to me. We struck up a conversation and I told him about the great camping trip I had been on the week prior. I told him it was the one that I thought proved that everything would be fine in my post-break up life. I claimed it was when I realized that my adventures would be just as good without Jenn. I had talked about all the great trips we had and gone through all the sites we had seen on our massive 13 day road trip. 

The man took it all in. I think he was just humoring me because he could see how excited I was to talk about my travels. Eventually, the conversation turned to his travels. It turned out he was a construction foreman, who had worked on projects all over the world. He talked about his trips overseas and his most recent stint in Alaska. He was working in Tucson now and talked about his trips to Mount Lemmon and Kartchner Caverns. He told me about see so many amazing sites around the world and what a great life it had been working on the road. As finished telling the stories, his tone changed a little. He looked at me and said his only regret was that while he was seeing all of this his wife was at home. He said his only regret was that she hadn't been there with him to see it all with him. 

This got me thinking about the trip I had been telling him about. My weekend in Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, and Flagstaff. I thought about what a great time I thought it was, but for the first time I seriously asked myself how much better it could have been with Jenn. How much more amazing could an amazing trip have been if I had someone to laugh with, look at the stars with, or sleep next to on those rainy nights. It was a great trip but it could have been better.

This brings me to the trip this weekend. I've been back with Jenn for a while now but this was the first time we got back into wandering. Our weekends have been full of the boys basketball games, searching for dogs at the local animal shelters, and sitting on the couch catching up on Netflix. The travel bug has been intensifying for the past few weeks. Originally we had planned to head out camping last weekend, but remembered that her boys had playoff games that we didn't want to miss. When Sunday rolled around the games were over, but our time was limited. We decided to take the one of the best day-drives available in the Phoenix area, the Apache Trail. 

An old stagecoach trail, that still looks like a stagecoach trail, this drive is not for the faint of heart. The roads are gravel, winding, steep, and narrow. I had been on the Trail a few years back, but honestly forgot who unnerving it can be at points. It is a throwback to another time. For Jenn it reminded her of driving on the Navajo Reservation for me it reminded me of North Dakota back roads, with a lot more hills of course. These are the kinds of trips I've fallen in love with. One of the great things about our long road trip was how little time we spent on freeways. So much of that trip was smaller highways, farm roads, and town streets.

The highlight of this trip was finding the next campground we hope to spend some time at soon, Burnt Corral Campground. Pictured above, we've set a goal of going on a weekday so we can get one of the sites like the one we took pictures from, right next to the lake. It was probably a good thing we took her car instead of mine because we didn't have a tent. If we did I'm not sure it would have been possible to resist the urge to set up camp and have to scramble our way back to the real world in the morning.

Apache Trail is not the average Sunday drive, it's beautiful, exciting, and sometimes terrifying. This stretch of AZ Highway 88 (yes, it's actually a highway) offers a little bit of everything: beautiful lake settings on Saguaro Lake and Apache Lake, mountains, desert, forests, man-made structures like Roosevelt Dam, and some great secluded campsites to get away from it all. 

Trips like the drive down Apache Trail are the great part of living in a state that I truly think is the most scenic in the U.S. There are places and trips like this all around us. This was something I found true in the solo camping trip I took. I could have done this drive solo too. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the trip just fine, but in the back of my mind, I would have known it could have been better. I probably wouldn't have stopped off to scout campgrounds. I wouldn't have had someone to laugh with and tell stories with. And I definitely wouldn't have had that moment when I looked down by the lake and saw the woman I love making the trip more memorable as she posed her puppy next to the lake and laughed that amazing laugh at how cute he looked. That is what takes a good trip and makes it so much better.