Grand Adventure, part two (revised)

Day Four

It's getting harder to blog... harder to remember everything that happens. It's funny, sometime during the day somebody will say something hilarious, and I'll say "I need to blog about that." And then when I finally find some time (I am on vacation after all) to sit down and makes some notes, I forget everything. And for those who already read this post, I realized I left off a day. See what I mean.

So... the real day four...

Day Four:

We left the Grand Canyon with a couple of the eastern end peeks at the views. When we stopped by the last area with a bookstore/giftshop, Kristen showed me a funny book called: Who Pooped in the Park? I picked it up and flipped through it… basically it was a children’s book showing kids how to recognize animals from the poop they leave behind. We were discussing this later at dinner, and Josh asked what we were talking about, so not really wanting to get into the whole poop thing at the dinner table, I just said “a Pooh book, you know, like Winnie the Pooh.” And then Bryan piped up with “you mean, Winnie’s Pooh and and Tigger’s too.” Geez. Where did these kids come from? Bryan then went on to say how he couldn’t wait to introduce his niece Lindsay to “Winnie’s Pooh.” Just a head’s up to Becca on that one!

We drove up along the eastern side through the Navajo Nation. We drove through Page, stopped at Burger King for lunch, then crossed the Glen Canyon Dam. Lake Powell is beautiful. There are many houseboats around there. Lake Powell to Utahn’s is like the Beach to Alabamian’s. They spend a week on a house boat, some buying partnerships into a 120,000 dollar houseboat like we’d buy into a timeshare at the beach. I’d love to go there sometime, on a big houseboat.

It was funny to see the boats as we drove into desert. There was a big boat marina storage, with no lake in sight. A funny place we saw was the Luxury Homes for sale, at a trailer park.

We decided to take a side trip to Zion’s Canyon National Park. We had bought the season pass to the national parks, so we could get into it basically for free. We drove into the East entrance, by the checkerboard mountain and through the tunnel to the natural arch. We turned around, and stopped at some cool rock formations that looked like red orange cake mix when you pour it into a pan. I guess you have to see it to understand. Then onto Bryce. We we got to Bryce Canyon National Park, we set up just outside the park at a private campground, so we had electricity! We needed it because we wanted to use the heater. It sure is colder at higher elevations. We ate dinner and then headed to the canyon of hoodoos. A hoodoo is a rock formation caused by the wind as opposed to water. It was so cool looking.

Day Five:

We woke up in our not so nice campground spot just 6 miles outside of Bryce Canyon. We had seen some of it the night before so we sort of knew what we were doing. We wanted to do a little hiking so soon after breakfast we headed to the Wall Street Section of Bryce Canyon. The boys took a hike down 27 switchbacks. I stayed behind because I wasn't thinking ahead and wore flip flops.

Then we drove to the end of the canyon to Rainbow Point and then back to Fairyland Point. The formations were awesome. Beautiful. Unique.

We had a picnic lunch.

We were done with red rock formations and canyons. So on to Provo. Kristen was anxious to get *home*.

4 hours or so later we arrived in Provo, set up camp and went to Brick Oven, an old college haunt of ours, to eat pizza with the Bryants. It's great having friends here in Utah.

Well, my internet access is over. I have to go. I'll try mobile blogging next.

Our Grand Adventure, part one

Day One

Today we traveled through six states, and we' not talking sissy states like Vermont or Rhode Island that take less than an hour to cross. Unfortunately, it took us seventeen hours... seventeen long, grueling, in a car with four other grumpy people and my butt hurts hours. But we have been learning as we go. We have learned the motto for each state we've been in. Let's see how you do. See if you can fill in the blanks. I'll put the answers at the end of my blog if I remember. And I'll give you the first one.

Alabama is "the Heart of Dixie."
Mississippi is __________
Tennessee is __________
Arkansas is _________
Oklahoma is ________
Texas is _________

Thought and Observations

Being stuck in a car provides forces us to communicate with each. Sometimes it's not happy communicating like "stop making that noise!", "stop kicking me", and the famous whiney "I'm hungry!". But we've some funny conversations, too.

J: I brought two water bottles.
K: If you drink all that water you'll have to go to the bathroom a lot.
J: No I won't. I can hold it for 8 hours at school.
K: You shouldn't do that.
J: Why not?
K: It makes your bladder wrinkle.
Everybody: huh?????
K: It's true. My roommate works at a Urology clinic and she says if you hold it too long it will make your bladder wrinkle.

Maybe you had to be there.

and then...
J: My eyes aren't working very well. I can't read that sign.
M: Which sign?
J: The one that says "Raceway."

Okay...

The lowpoint of the day was finding a hotel room at midnight. I won't go into details but suffice it to say things did not go according to plan. But we found a place and slept like logs. Wake-up call 6:30 a.m. Yuck!


Here are the answers I promised:
the Magnolia State
the Volunteer State
the Natural State
the Sooner State
the Lone Star State

Day Two

Getting up was no fun this morning. But at least we could sleep in the car. Bryan and Kristen are prone to car sicknesses, so they always take Dramamine and then sleep away the trip. Today we drove from Amarillo to the Grand Canyon. We went from flat to fairly big mountains to flat with big canyons. We stopped in Albuquerque to get some food supplies. On my cool phone with Google maps we found a Burger King, but we traveled up and down the road and it wasn't there! So sometimes it doesn't help to have technology. We settled for Wendy's and then hit the road.

The campground was very nice, set in the tall pines. There were ravens everywhere, and woodpeckers, too. The campsite was easy to get to and soon we were all set up. We wanted to hurry and go see what we came for. The GRAND Canyon. We drove over to Mather Point. Wow. It's Grand all right.
After going to another view point to watch the sunset over the Grand Canyon, lots of oohing and ahhing (by the way, out that direction somewhere in the above photo is a place actually called Ohh Ahh Point!), and lots of camera clickings we headed back to camp. For dinner we had spaghetti. And then sleep. Glorious sleep.

Day Three

Glorious sleep, ha! What an awful night. That first night camping always seems to be the hardest. We were "serenaded" (and I use that term loosely) to sleep by some guitar players and singers. Not very good singers I might add. Add to that three different car alarms going off during the night, Kristen saying "Josh, you're snoring" and "I can't sleep" repeated several times, Marc really snoring and banging his head at least twice on the camper shelf above our heads, makes for a really LONG night. Plus, it was freezing! We were about 6600 ft above sea level. Good thing I brought my hoodie!

The day was well planned. First we ate breakfast and got ready for a hike, filling up water bladders and packs. Then we headed for the bus stop. Grand Canyon National Park actually has a great free bus shuttle service. So we just left our car at the campground and saved on gas. Our first stop was the Information center where unfortunately Josh left his sunglasses. From there we headed to the Bright Angel Trailhead. a trail where you can take a mule ride down and back

Hiking down the canyon is like the opposite of hiking up a mountain... they save the worst for last. You go down first and then when you are all hot and tired you have to hike back UP. We decided to hike down for about a half hour and then come back up. It takes twice as long on the way back up so we figured we had an hour and a half hike. We went down the beautiful, buy slighty precarious (and smelly from the mule droppings) trail and were ready to turn around when a park ranger came by and asked us how we were doing. We said we were fine and he said about fifteen minutes farther down the trail was another cool hole in the rock. The boys decided to continue down, but Kristen and I headed back up. This trail was rated "difficult" and was fairly steep, so we didn't want to overdo it. Turns out it wasn't so hard on the way back up. I got a little dizzy a few times, but we stopped and rested at all the shady spots. That's the trouble in Arizona, the sun is so very hot. It's easy to get dehydrated.

At the top of the trail along the rim were some shops, so being the girls that we are we decided to do some shopping. I got a retro looking GC t-shirt, and a gift for my dad. Then we saw someone eating an ice cream cone. Boy did it look good. So we found the ice cream shop, got two single scoops and headed for the bus stop. When we got back to the campsite the boys were already back. We had lunch and then siesta time. The temps here are so extreme... Freezing at night (okay not technically *freezing* but upper 40's) and burning hot during the day. It was hard to take a siesta in such warm conditions, and then Kristen kept saying "Josh, you're breathing to loud!" I think maybe I got in a 15 minute snooze.

After lunch/naptime we headed to the Hermits Rest loop. This part of the canyon is only accessible by shuttle. We could get on and off at the 8 different overlooks. It's amazing how different the canyon looks from the different viewpoints. I think my favorites were the Pima and the Hopi. Or may the Trailhead overlook where I took this picture of the trail we had hiked down the day before. Because it was the highest point in the park, I could for a brief moment get cell phone coverage. Yeah, I know, I'm nerdy. I quickly downloaded my email while I could.

By the time we were done with the loop we were all very tired. We saw some elk on the way back (I still think they were mule deer). We had beef stew for dinner and then showered. Boy those five minutes that cost us seven quarters was worth it! I slept like a rock that night!

day one

The world is flat in Texas.

I'm Going on a Trip and I'm going to take an...

...Apple.

One of those games we've played in the car on long car trips is the "I'm going on a trip and I'm going to take a..." and you say something that starts with the letter "A". The next person does the letter "B" and then says the letter "A", and so on until the last turn the person say something that starts with the letter "Z" and has to remember everything mentioned back to "A".

We're going on a trip and we're going to take "apples to apples", barbecue potato chips, candy, dramimine, earbuds (my new Sony pink ones, pink so the boys won't steal them), flipflops, gameboy ds, honda pilot, ice, jam, Kristen, luggage, maps, nylon rope, orange juice, pop tarts, quarters for pay showers, ravioli (thank goodness for chef- boy-r-dee), sheets, toothbrush and toothpaste, umbrella, veggies to munch on, water, xylophone (okay, just kidding... you find something you take camping that starts with an "X"!), yogurt, ziploc baggies.

Packing for a two week long camping trip takes way more time than you think. I decided when we are near civilization, we'll eat out. That will save on the food packing. The kids are old enough to pack for themselves, so that helps there. I've got most of the food ready to go, supplies like paper towels and water bottles, and various games, reading material, etc. I need to get my suitcase packed! So much to do, so little time.

I did notice that there are a lot of techno items on our packing lists. DVD's, gameboy, cell phones, laptops, ipods, digital camera's, batteries, power inverters, dvd player, etc. You can tell we aren't primitive camping! Our camper even has air conditioning, providing our campsite has electricity. I know the national parks don't.

Here's where we are going:
Grand Canyon
Bryce Canyon
Provo, Utah
SLC, Utah
maybe: Vernal, Utah (Dinosaur National Park)
Rocky Mountain National Park

Lot's of fun, lots of driving, lots of time in a car in the middle of nowhere. Lots of time for sibling bonding. I can only hope!

One of my friends said: "have fun on your trip. Maybe something exciting will happen and will all turn into a great adventure!" Here's hoping for fun adventures, not the car breaks down and we end up spending a week in Amarillo, TX adventures.

Bad Blogger

I haven't been a very good blogger lately. I haven't really been into it. My life is not very exciting right now. Well, that's not true. I have been to the beach. I have been to Nashville. I have played a flute gig. But I haven't done much around the house. I haven't read any books. I haven't practiced very much. I haven't watched much tv, but I have seen a few movies on TV. I haven't seen Spiderman 3, Pirates 3 or anything 3. My whole family went to see the Pirates 3 movie without me, when I was in Nashville. So sad. When I came home and found out, I said "now who will go with me to see it?" and Bryan replied: "you have friends now. Go with your friends." Nice. Anybody want to go see Pirates 3 with me?

I have been planning out trip to the Grand Canyon and beyond. We'll be heading to Bryce Canyon, and also to Rocky Mountain National Park after we drop Kristen off at school in Provo. We'll take our camper and camp along the way. I love to see new places. I love to check them off my list. One of the books I got for my birthday was "1000 Places to see before you die". I'll get to check "the Grand Canyon" off that list. Hey, that would make a good blog. Which of the 1000 Places I have to see before I die have I actually been too? I'll make a mental note. ;-)

Boring

Quote of the day:

"An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations."

Charles de Montequieu

And thus the purpose of this blog... to bore my children. ;-)