South Mountain Park

We spent all friday afternoon at South Mountain Park, south of Phoenix. There are awesome park and trail systems here. We decided to take a 3.5 mile hike to a natural hidden tunnel, creatively named "Hidden Tunnel". There were a few petroglyphs outside the tunnel. The tunnel itself was pretty cool but we were feeling quite tired by the time we made it there, so we weren't sure it was worth the long hike with little kids. The hike was awesome though. The desert mountains are beautiful. It wouldn't be a good place to hike in the summer heat however, as there's no shade except for the occasional huge rock formation. On the way back to our vehicles, Rus and Niels each took one of the girls on their shoulders and we made it back in record time. The whole hike took us three hours. It is a prime location for mountain bikers. There were a few there that day and Niels was really wishing he had his bike with him. We rewarded the kids (and Niels) with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's for pizza, games, rides and prizes. We finished off the day by going to Mesa to see the elaborate Christmas lights and nativity scene displays at the Mesa Temple. We all slept good that night and spent the next day relaxing and shopping at thrift and toy stores.