After exploring near Tonto Village early in the morning it is now time to move on to the stop for the day. We want to look for Payson Diamonds, something that we weren’t aware before reaching the AirBnB but now sounds like a nice distraction because we can barely move otherwise. So we pass near the Bar & Grill we had dinner the night prior and then a controlled burn before finally turning onto the Diamond Point Road.
There is a gated community here but luckily the road continues past it towards a fire lookout high on Diamond Point. On the road you can stop and look for the Payson Diamonds and we do just that and even find one, not the best possible but still a cool one.
We then continue to the end of the road where we decide to look for a cache. You cannot climb to the fire lookout but the cache is on the ridge next to it with some nice views over the valley.
While the views are nice it is quite cold and windy here so we find the cache and then retreat to the car and decide to drive to Pine and do some shopping there before find a place to eat an early dinner.
In Pine we stop at the Farmer’s market and buy some provisions before exploring a new hippie clothing store nearby. The coffee shop is closed however, too bad as some coffee wouldn’t have hurt.
We are quite hungry by now and are looking for a place to have a nice early dinner. Unfortunately being Sunday most places are closed but in the end we find a restaurant open that we visited before and liked. Today we order fish and steak and the fish is surprisingly good given where we are and how far from any water.
The steak is also as good as we remember and as a bonus we order a homemade pie that is really good and we finish right before closing time. And then it is time to return home after a beautiful but exhausting weekend on the Rim.
