For our anniversary weekend, John and I decided that it would be fun to do a camping trip near Flagstaff, the city where we had gotten married seven years ago.  We also liked the idea of inviting John's friends John Coffman and his wife Jan on another hike with us, because we always enjoyed spending time with them.  All of our planning worked out nicely; we selected a trail that we could all do, and we agreed to meet John and Jan at their condo in Flagstaff on Saturday, July 15.

With the 4Runner fully packed with all of our camping gear (including our new canopy, which we had used for the first time in Rocky Point earlier in the year), John and Mary and I left for Flagstaff on Saturday morning, a bit later than we had expected to leave.  Our intention had been to be at John and Jan's condo at 8:00 a.m., but with our delayed start and numerous stops along the way, we didn't make it there until 8:30.  Fortunately, John and Jan are patient people and our tardiness didn't faze them at all.

The trail that we had chosen to hike that day was the Inner Basin Trail, a beautiful 4.2 mile long loop in the San Francisco Peaks.  This was a trail that we had done as a family last year, but John and Jan had never been there.  (They had been planning to hike Mount Eldon that day, before we invited them along with us; they had no problem scratching their plans in order to see something new.)  We also knew that it was a trail that Mary could hike without difficulty, as it was certainly a kid-friendly trail.

John and Jan chose to ride with us to the trailhead in the 4Runner.  (Of course, we had plenty of room!)  To get there from their condo, we took US 66 through town to US 89; then, we continued on US 89 to the forest access road opposite the turnoff for Sunset Crater National Monument.  The forest access road was FR 522, also known as Lockett Meadow Road, and it led us up to the Lockett Meadow Campground, 4.6 miles away.

We arrived at the trailhead head just before 10:00 a.m., and although John and Jan were ready to go, we were not.  We took about fifteen minutes getting our gear together and making sandwiches for lunch before we were able to start hiking.  We also paused to take pictures of each other before we could get going.  

Our hike began shortly after 10:00 on that warm, sunny morning.  Although it was July, there wasn't a single monsoon cloud in the sky, and the air was hot and dry. (It was nearly eighty degrees when we started hiking, and we were at 8900 feet in elevation!)  It wasn't the kind of weather we were used to in Flagstaff; it was usually cool and humid up there in July.  Nonetheless, at least it wasn't 116 degrees!

Despite the warmth, our hike was very pleasant.  John and John hiked together ahead of the rest of us and talked about skydiving (of course).  Jan and Mary and I hiked at Mary's pace (about 1.5 miles per hour) and played games to keep her little legs moving.  (Although Mary had done well her first time on this trail, she didn't do as well this time, so it was everything in our power to keep her interested.)  One of the games that we played was "Guess How Many Steps It Is To That Rock" (or That Tree, or To Daddy...whatever it took to keep her going on that steady, 960 foot climb.

It took us just over an hour to reach the Inner Basin: the site of the City of Flagstaff watershed cabins.  John explained to John and Jan that the City of Flagstaff gets its water from the springs located there.  He also showed them that they could do further exploration up into the Peaks by continuing along the network of connecting trails; he pointed them out on the maps pinned to the kiosk at the Inner Basin.

Since it was after 11:00 a.m. (or the Meltdown Hour, as we had come to know it), we decided to have lunch there.  The five of us sat down on a pair of benches that had been placed next to a water spigot. It wasn't the best place to eat our sandwiches, because there were so many flying insects circling over the mud created by the leaking spigot; however, we made the best of it.  

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