Circle of Excellence Days 4-6

Breakfast was at 7 AM again on Wednesday morning, and then we left for our activity for the day- Cattle Drive Horse Back Riding. This was my 2nd time ridding a horse (whose name was Loco) and it took a little getting used to. One thing that impressed upon me right away is that riding a horse is not like riding a 4 wheeler at all (not that I thought that or anything)! On a 4 wheeler you turn the handle, the vehicle turns without any delay or hesitation. With a horse, you nudge the reins in the direction you want to go, and depending on the horses mood at the moment, either you turn the way you want, or in the case of a poor lady in front of me on a crotchety old mare, you turn into a cactus. The horses would nibble on brush along the way and the guides told us not to let them do so, by pulling up on the reins. Here is a shot of Naquel riding on her horse Durango.

After the horse ride, we came back to our hotel room, Naquel wanted to lay out by the pool again for a little while. We showered up and then went to dinner with Chris' former counterpart, at a quaint little restaurant called Bandera. Their cornbread is amazing.

When we came back to the hotel that night from dinner, there was another gift on our bed waiting for us as the image below shows.

Inside the package was a large book: Arizona on my Mind- a book with large pictures of the beautiful locales of Arizona. There was also an invitation to the planned event the next night.

Early Thursday morning we woke up for breakfast, then jumped on board the shuttle to our activity for the day- River Fun Yak. We drove 1 hour east of Phoenix to the Salt River in the Tonto National Forrest. Our guides inflated our kayaks, and we embarked down the Salt River for 5 miles. The current was pretty slow so it took about 3 hours.

We arrived back at our hotel room around noon, jumped in the shower and got ready for the even that night- a bar-b-q cook out. Here is Naquel getting on board the shuttle to the bar-b-q.

The food was delicious and the decor was based off of a southwestern theme. They had hundreds of gi-normous ribeyes cooking on huge grills.

The scenery was beautiful, and the effort that AZ took to make this as fun as it was was very nice.

There was an old mission near us, and the full moon rising made for a nice picture.

I almost forgot to mention that Naquel and I dressed up for the dinner. Here is a picture of Naquel getting all honkey tonk!

Friday morning we woke up, had breakfast, packed all our stuff, and then headed back to Las Vegas. Although we had a super fun week, we were excited to see the kids and give them big hugs. What a great time we had. Hopefully, we can win Circle of Excellence again next year, in Florida. We will keep you posted.