6th Anniversary

   So Carrie asked me, her loving husband, to write a blog post about our 6th anniversary. We take turns planning our "big" dates for the year (generally anniversary, valentine's day, and our Christmas present to each other), a big date meaning it lasts more than a couple hours and/or we are allowed to spend a significant amount of money on it.

    This year it was Carrie's turn to plan, which is great because frankly, she's better at big date planning than I am. This year, she borrowed and repaired a bike from a friend so that we would have enough to go on a bike ride together, and took me to the Gila River for the day, just north of town.

We didn't bring a camera, so I found this picture of the Gila taken some 40 miles west of where we were. The Gila north of Safford looks a lot the same. 

    Once we got there, we had a time of it actually getting to the river; the rains recently had left deep winding paths of sticky mud between us and the river, and the sand banks were so brittle they crumbled underfoot. I had firsthand experience, after trying to jump a ravine only for the far bank to crumble under me and send me tumbling into the mud. This was okay; it gave Carrie a laugh, my shoes were due for cleaning anyway, and I got through it unhurt and with warning against trusting the edges of the riverbank. We ended up using the piled wood from an old campfire to build a bridge across the mud to make it to a higher sand bank next to the river that hadn't been muddy.

    The river was just about everything we could have hoped for. It had rained recently enough that the water was running fairly high, and everything was vibrantly green. The water was perfectly cold; a stark contrast to the hot day but not cold enough to keep you from swimming in it. Best of all, we were pretty much alone. The only other people we saw were some jeeps going down a dirt road on the far side of the bank, which were mostly hidden by the undergrowth lining the river. The only downside was also a side effect of the rain; the river had churned up enough mud to make the water opaque.

  Still, we had lots of fun. After we got used to the water we trekked up the river a ways and would float down a deeper stretch of it, stopping from time to time to play in the water. When we got tired, we got out and Carrie revealed the part of the date she had kept secret. She had managed to smuggle pasta alfredo, bread with olive oil dip, chicken, cherries, and sparking cider, complete with crystal plates and wine glasses, out to the river with us for a romantic picnic.

We had Martinelli's... but again, this was the closest picture I could find.

  I was totally blown away by the picnic. Carrie had taken great pains to keep concealed from me what she was bringing, and the only part of it I saw were frozen burritos that turned out to be for the kids while the babysitter was there. Needless to say this surpassed all expectations.

  All in all we were gone about 5 hours; and when we got home, our babysitter announced that she was behind on her young women's service hours and would not accept any payment.

  On the whole, it was an excellent way to celebrate 6 years of having each other.