In a Van Down By the River

The other day, the kids and I went down to the Gila River.

Every spring, several people drown there - but it's usually people who are drunk or swimming at night (or both). The current is pretty strong, and it's easy to see how someone could be swept away so quickly. That freaks me out, so we never wade more than a foot or two in.

You can see the Avondale Blvd bridge in the picture above. There are several good places to access the river, but I like to go by the racetrack, since there's a parking lot. I feel better about leaving the car there than along the side of the road; although we've done that a time or two.

I don't know what it is with little girls and shells, but Erin went nuts with the number of mussel shells there! There were places where we were walking on piles of them, just like gravel. Erin was excited when we found a live one with its shell still closed. We opened it up, and I'm not sure what the kids had in mind, but I'm pretty sure the gooey slime of a mussel wasn't quite what they were expecting. They were still really interested, though, and we spent a lot of time raking our fingers through the sand to find mussels & re-bury them.

Here they are under the bridge with Monument Hill in the background. We hiked that a few months ago.

As much as I hate graffiti, the underside of the bridge was kind of pretty, with all the different colors of paint. It was kind of fun to climb up the embankment and get right up under the roadway. The cars souns like thunder when they go over.

Avondale Boulevard...

Here's a little wider spot in the river - if you look REALLY close, you can see the very light purple Camelback Mountian on the horizon in the center of the picture.

The best part is that is only a couple of miles from the house! A good way to get out of the city for an hour or two.