What I did on my summer vacation
I remember writing those essays when I was in school (as my sons used to say “back when dinosaurs roamed the earth”) about what you did on your summer vacation. Mine usually read – went to the beach. Now that I live at the beach, I look for something else to do in the summer. The last 2 years I’ve gone south to other parts of Mexico. This year my friend, Ginger, invited me to share a summer home rental in the White Mountains of Arizona, so I went North.
Puerto Peñasco North
Imagine my surprise to learn that a large portion of Puerto Peñasco residents, particularly Cholla Bay residents, summer in and around Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside. Many have 2nd or 3rd homes or permanent RVs. Others bring their RVs for temporary stays. The area is beautiful, the weather is fabulous, they have many non-corporate restaurants and to feed my two addictions, lots of thrift stores, antique stores and the Hon Dah Casino on the White Mountain Apache reservation. Shopping expeditions have put me down a few hundred bucks but so far for the summer I am only down forty dollars at the casino after several visits so I count the trip a success! For those of you more sane than I, there are wonderful ATV trails, hiking trails and lakes for fishing. And every week it seems there is a festival or special event somewhere in this area or one the small surrounding communities of Snowflake, Taylor, Vernon, Linden, Greer, Eager, and Springerville.
Every summer the residents of Cholla Bay throw a party called “Cholla in the Pines”. The usual hostess, Shirley, in Pinetop was in an accident this year (she is recovering well) so the party moved to Show Low hosted by Billie and assisted by Rhea and their husbands. The group always graciously includes anyone from Puerto Peñasco, or even those who used to live in Puerto Peñasco. Ken and Pat, Cholla Bay residents, who summer in New Mexico and points East, always make it to the event. Ken graciously offered, or was that drafted, to cut the turkey.
