Tonto Creek

We spent the day at Tonto Creek yesterday. It was magical. The weather was perfect, it smelled like pine, the water was cold, but we still got in.
As we were hiking through the creek I came WAY to close to stepping on a SNAKE. My first reaction was not very desirable, and a naughty word may have been screamed, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of the day. It was a little snake, like 3 feet long (maybe less I don't know) and it was eating a fish that was WAYYYYYYY to big to fit in there. The creepy part was that we all gathered around to see it as it was slithering this way and that in the water, trying to gulp down the fish, and it slithered up to Derek's foot and started going up his shoe. CREEPY BARF OMG I HATE SNAKES!
But Derek and the kids loved it.
Should have gotten a pic of it but I didnt want to risk dropping my camera in the creek.
Then we found "slide rock" and spend a hefty amount of time sliding down that.
Gus came too and we discovered that he loves water. He did great keeping up with us trotting through the creek. We didn't have to leash him all day, he followed me around like a puppy (no pun intended, har-har-har I'm such a nerd but you love me anyway).  

We "day" camped as you can see.
We did find it a little odd that there was NOBODY else there (except 3 teens and one old couple). I was totally expecting the place to be packed. We felt very lucky to have the WHOLE PLACE TO OURSELVES! The odds were ever in our favor......so we thought. As we were packing the car to leave a forest ranger drove up and told us the the FORREST WAS CLOSED! Whats that you say? You can close a forest? Yep, guess so since they DID.  We were apparently too excited to read the signs (which the ranger says were actually there, but I was all...."uhhhhhhh, I didn't see any signs, babe did you see any signs? Were there actually signs out somewhere? At what time were the signs placed and exactly where were they placed?"
Ranger man was really nice and said he wasnt formally warning us ("oooohhhhhhhhhh thankyou thankyou thankyou") but that it could technically be a $300 fine, and to check the website, read the newspaper, or call the # next time to make sure the place is open. Again I was alll..........." can they really close a FORREST???????"   Yep, sure can.
Good thing he caught us after our 7 hour stay :)