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!