Enjoying summer in the pines of Arizona

As most of you know, Arizona gets hot.  Really hot.  So every once in a while we decide to get away out of the Valley of the Sun to the pines a couple of hours north. This month, we did a day trip to the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, which I learned is the largest travertine natural bridge in the world. I also learned that the difference between an arch and a natural bridge is that arches are primarily eroded by wind and bridges are primarily eroded by water. It was truly incredible.  It was big enough that it was hard to get a good picture to show its scope. It was essentially a 180 foot tall (my estimate) cavern with two entrances. To get there, we hiked down into the canyon and past some pools. Under the bridge, the temperatures dropped 20 or so degrees and it was raining from the ceiling. There was a waterfall on one side of the bridge. After bouldering until we couldn't go any more, we went back and played in the pools. What an awesome trip!