This year is flying by way too fast! It is already April and we just went for our first hike. We have been traveling almost every month and every weekend have been either preparing for a trip or recovering from a trip. This past weekend, we decided to go somewhere different for a hike.
The McDowell Mountains is located about 20 minutes north of Tempe in
Fountain Hills, a little town just north of Scottsdale. To enter the park, you will have to pay $6/car. We hiked the
Granite and Bluff trails, which was recommended for views of the spring wildflowers. It is definitely our favorite low intensity hiking place now! It is extremely peaceful with only sounds of nature. You can hear the bird callings, rustling in the bushes from lizards and snake (this is the first time we saw a huge snake during our hikes in AZ!) and the surrounding is very tranquil. These two trails was a total of 3 miles round-trip with no elevation.
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| Desert spring wildflowers |
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| Goldfields |
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| Tree carcass |
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| Poppies |
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| Anthill |
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| Hedgehog Cactus |
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| Cholla cactus |
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| Lupinus |
After the hike, we stopped by Fountain Hills on our way home. We went to a Mexican tapas place for lunch -
Sofrita. It is a small family-owned restaurant with very unique and homey decorations. Their flower choice of their table decoration brought a smile to me - Cymbidium orchid, our wedding flower!
Sofrita has a simple lunch menu with familiar ingredients. I ordered the Chilaquiles Verde - a tortilla stacks with shredded chicken and eggs. I have wanted to get one since my trip to Cuatro Ciénegas, Mexico. I ordered one from
Chelsea's Kitchen when we went there sometime last year but was very disappointed at their chilaquiles. I was excited to see another menu serving chilaquiles. Sofrita's version is very delicious and flavorful. The tortilla stack was soaked with fresh salsa verde and their chicken was very juicy and tasted like it was prepared in a cooker with lots of flavorful herbs.
After lunch, we walked around the
Fountain Park, a man-made park with the fourth tallest fountain. The fountain goes off every hour. We saw it sprayed while we were hiking at the McDowell Mountains but not while we were walking around the park. The park was full of activities with lots of birthday parties and people BBQing. We were extremely surprised to see the American coots so healthy and plump compared to the ones we saw at
MSU and Tempe Town Lake! They sure get lots of food here. But, the highlight of our day was watching a
mating game between two dragonflies - they sure are
brutal when it comes to mating!
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| American Coots |
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| Dragonflies |
