Angle Orchard, AZ

Over one hundred years ago, this family had the grand idea to plant Angle Orchard in the shadow of Mount Graham in South Eastern Arizona. After spending four days at Lake Roper State Park, watching the clouds hang over the mountain range, the rain coming and going over the foothills but hardly touching our cabin hideaway, it seems to be the best place in all of Arizona to plant fruit trees. It was completely by accident that we stumbled onto the orchard. The day was going to be hot and windless and we headed up the mountain for some cooler temps, a change in scenery, and a picnic. Not 30 minutes away from our campground we saw the tiny sign for Angle Orchard, leading us down a single track dirt road, deep into what I'd call.... a valley? a ravine? I'm not sure what to call it, let's call it "heaven for apples". The trees grew abundant everywhere. My only regrets of the day was that we arrived when the sun was high, not great for picture taking. And it doesn't take but ten minutes to fill a bucket of apples when you have two enthusiastic helpers and a baby strapped in the bjorn. I would have liked to linger among the trees, I could have stayed for an hour with the kittens in the barn. The host was quite gracious, letting the boys explore to discover the apple polishing machinery, the kittens hidden away in the loft, the tractors, and samples of all the apples they could pick. The golden delicious are my favorite from the day, so crisp and sweet, easily the best and freshest apple I've ever tasted. A lovely unexpected adventure, the best kind.

(Im toting my new Canon 5D Mark II, with the 24-70mm 2.8, and aside from sharpening for the web, these are straight out of the camera. Even the apple picture two down, I'm still trying to figure out what happened there...)