An Unexpected Development

I've been busy, busy, busy the last few days getting ready for our upcoming vacation.   We've been planning our trip to Arizona and really looking forward to our trip - especially the time we were going to spend in the White Mountains in the eastern part of the state, close to the New Mexico border.  Every thing was planned, reservations made well in advance, trails and hikes discussed, as well as places we wanted to make sure to get back to again.

Then, in the early part of last week we heard from a friend in Phoenix.  The Professor had sent him an e-mail telling him about our plans and our friend sent a message back telling us about a wildfire right in the Hannagan Meadow area.  It's the Wallow Fire and it's been burning since May 29 and so far it has burned over 140,000 acres in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in eastern AZ.  The lodge has been evacuated, as well as several other communities in the area.  Wednesday I called one of the ranger stations in the national forest to ask if we should even plan to come to that area at all, and she said, "Stay away...there's no telling when this fire will be under control."

So, what to do?  We had to make plans and reservations for the second half of our trip with just a few days before we head out.  The Professor is SO disappointed about having to make changes. He was looking forward to being out on the backside of nowhere, in the cool and beautiful mountains.  Instead of remote, beautifulk Hannagan Meadow, we are now going to be spending time in beautiful, but definitely NOT remote, Sedona.

I used my favorite vacation rental site,  VRBO and TripAdvisor to make some last minute reservations and I think I was very fortunate with what I found.   We're all set now, about to embark on a very different type of vacation than we had originally planned, but that's life. It's all about making the best of unexpected developments.

We are very grateful to God that we did find out about the fire in time to make other arrangements before it was too late.  We are praying for the firefighters and the residents of the small towns that have had to be evacuated.  As far as I know, no one has been injured or killed in this fire, which is a great blessing.

I'd better get back to packing.

By the way - if you happen to notice any unusual spellings or grammatical errors in this post, it's because I'm writing this without wearing my glasses.  I definitely need to remember to wear my glasses while blogging!