Day Eight

You know these are the photos you want to see!

Left Walmart and went to the Walnut Canyon National Monument. There we some cliff dwellings there that we needed to see. They had a nice walk to view them and pretty visitor center that looks just like all the other “National” stuff. Kinda tired of being preached at about how great the indians were. Ugg. I'm not going to go into it. Vacation! It was a pretty canyon!

Just like bears!

My men contemplating the canyon.
Actually, I think they were thinking they were happy I didn't want to walk down there. 

Then we went to Meteor Crater which was wickedly cool! They have a great museum about all the space stuff and meteor and meteorites, and space travel and science! We spent a couple hours there and took the tour of the rim, which was totally worth the walk and the heat. Watched a movie too, on which Jake commented that all the stuff in the movie was what we just read in the museum, which led to a discussion about the way different people learn. Tom and Jake got new hats at the gift shop!

Tom fondling the meteor. He was really excited about this much to the entertainment of the docents.

On the tour!

A rare family shot.

Tom found this awesome lizard!

Stopped in Winslow for some pictures “On the Corner”! 

Then drove on to Show Low, which we found out is mostly retired people. Every place we looked to stay at was 55 and up only! 

Another reason we won't be buying property here.

So we stayed at another Walmart, had dinner at Wendy's, and bedded down for the night. This was a fun one because we had some neighbors that included Walmart trucks and the hospital was next door with Medi-Vac Helicopter!

Goodnight Walmart!

Day Seven

Grand Canyon! I'm glad we got there early. I heard a guy at the Plane Museum saying that he was surprised how crowded the parking was the day he went and I was worried. When we left at 3pm, it was totally full, parking lot sharks everywhere.

We watched a few shows about the park. Watched a couple movie things, which was cool because just the day before the word “extrapolate” came up in “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and there were some perfect examples here. Looked at a lot of displays. Browsed the bookshop for anything not propaganda, found a book by John Wesley Powell called “The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons”, very nice. I've been reading it ever since. It was very hard to find anything written older than the last few years or any first hand accounts of anything.

The canyon was gorgeous. It looks like a backdrop painted and hanging to hide the real world. We speculate that there really isn't anything there because it's hiding some big government conspiracy or alien world. :))

We took the very crowded shuttle around to other parts of the rim and saw a couple other visitor centers. We all liked the pieces you could see closer up. Staring out across it, it just doesn't seem real. And its hazy and unclear. But it is awe inspiring to see the layers in the rocks closer to you.

Here something weird. At the visitor center, there was a large crew of maybe 20 people planting things and running water pipes to everything to keep it growing. The Grand Canyon gets no water and has to pipe in water from a spring on a reservation miles away. Now. If the park is supposed to be preserved as nature grows it, why would we plant things and keep them looking nicer than they really would be if we just left it alone? Why not just make some roped off paths so that people won't trample it to death and then let thing along to grow as they do naturally. Yep, it certainly wouldn't be as pretty, but it would be real.

All in all, we all liked seeing it, but felt like we had to get out of there. The crowds, ick. And really you can only stare a the hole for so long and from so many angles. Unless you are backpacker or a river rafter, or maybe an artist, there isn't much to do but stare at it and wonder what it is, how it got there. That's fine if you are alone and meditating, but when you've got two little boys...well, we left. On to other “attractions”.

We headed to Flagstaff and found it to be crowded and busy too. We stayed at a Walmart parking lot. Yes! I called and asked permission! I rock! We had the best steak dinner ever at the Outback next door and then bedded down for the night.

Day Six

Tom got his wish today, we went for a horseback ride! It was fun and we had a great hour, but Tom realized that riding a horse is a lot harder on your legs than you would think. We all took a few minutes to get our legs back under us. 

On the way back to the camper, I realized that I had lost my wedding ring! It must have fallen off my hand while we were riding. The woman working there said they were going to do some trail maintenance this week and they will keep an eye out for it.

We also went to the Planes of Fame museum at the Grand Canyon Valle Airport. Tom was in heaven with all the planes. There was a training wall that showed where all the fuel systems and such went. He could have been there for days. Jake and I found a ravens nest outside the hanger so we stood there and watched them awhile. Jake started a new collection today, pins. He got one of a A-10 Warthog.

Next stop, the Deer Farm! Dan was not interested, but I made him go anyway. The boys were wild about feeding the deer. You go in there and feed them like a petting zoo. They act just like goats! They had a bunch of kinds of deer, donkeys, llamas, buffalo, and a camel! One of the deer had her baby while we were there and we got to watch the whole thing! We finally had to leave because we were starving.

They are Fallow Deer but the boys say that they are just goats painted like deer.

The new Mommy and her Baby!

Tom's new Elk friend.

We got gas at an old station where the guy only accepted cash and had to come out and make sure you weren't going to steal his gas. Tom was thrilled to get to use the old pumps.

Mac n cheese and Spam tonight! The boys went and rode the bikes at the campground while I cleaned up the dishes. Dan and I went to the campground store to see about getting a new ring but they didn't have any we liked. We got some salt and pepper shakers instead.

Sitting here waiting until 7 when the boys want to go swimming, so they can go when the lights in the pool are on.  

Day Five

We left at 8am headed for Williams. Traveling Route 66, we saw prairie dogs and a badger crossing the road. And several “Burma Shave” signs!

Looks like we barely made it alive!

Yes, Jake has this silly look in almost every picture. :))

Breakfast! We had to stop here. It was just too cute.

Williams is gorgeous! There are a million things to do. You could spend a week in this area alone. We had a big breakfast at Pine Country Cafe. Steak and eggs for Dan and Jake. Tom and I had Country Fried steak! We walked around a bit and check out the visitor center. There is an “Alien Beef Jerky” store, so I got some “Road Kill” Jerky!

We went back to the camper and decided to go to the KOA up the freeway a bit and decide what to do from there. It's a nice one but to me the pool looks strange. It's murky and indoors so it's humid in there unless you're in the pool.

We decided to go to Bearizona next! Animals! You can drive through and see the animals up close. We saw the Raptor Show and Tom harassed the presenter asking if they were going to have Velociraptors. We saw the cutest beavers floating in a pool and porcupines up in a tree! The baby black bears were wrestling and playing. And the teenage bears were fighting over big piles of fruit.

Waiting for the "Raptors"!

This is the one that flew right over the boys. She was too fast for a picture in flight.

Unaware the porcupines climb trees.

And there were several Raccoons in the trees as well.

Justin Beaver

This is the cool GPS that told us about the animals as we drove through.  It said there was a T-Rex enclosure, but I heard no music.

Bears!

Bear in the road!

I loved driving through and seeing the buffalo and the big black bears, but the wolves were tired I guess because they just laid there sleeping.

We came home and did laundry and played in the pool and now I have decent internet so I'm catching up on my blog! I learned from our last trip not to wait a few days to write things down and get the pictures off my camera. I forget and all the days run together!

Tom and Jake are off running around the campground and I'm thinking it may be time for dinner!

See you tomorrow!

Day Four

Got up early. It's so cool in the mountains! We got gas and food and headed up Route 66 to the Grand Canyon Caverns. The drive was so gorgeous. When we pulled into the place, we all smelled hot electrical. It stopped when we parked at the caverns. The I tried to use the water, no water pump. No electrical. Ahh!! The coach battery shorted and melted something. Dan fixed it temporarily, so we are good to go until the next big town.

 This place looks a little worse for wear! As we were leaving we stopped to look at Herbie they had out front. It felt like we were in the movie cars!

We planned on staying here for the night and we're sticking to it. A guy told us the best spot for shade and we took it. It's perfect. We had our choice of spaces. There was no one here!

The boys ran back to the entrance and told them what space we were in. They found two wandering horses in the campground and found them to be friendly. They brought them apple cores after lunch.

We took the cavern tour. It was pretty creepy going down in the elevator 21 stories but once we go inside it was so big you didn't think about being so far underground. They call it the Grand Canyon Caverns because the smoked it once to find where the air flow was coming from and smoke cameout in the Grand Canyon weeks later! Our tour guide, Jerry, sounded like a professional recording. It sounded awesome and he had lots of facts, but he wasn't very interactive.

Do they look scared? It's 21 stories down in an elevator!

Down into the depths!

Touching petrified dino poo!

We had dinner at the cafe. BBQ bacon burgers and onion rings...mmm...they were so good! A bus showed up while we were eating. A bus load of teenage boys. They look like a basketball team. They have pitched a bunch of tents nearby. Right next to us is another family with two boys. The boys immediately went over and asked them if they play baseball. They do. So they were out playing ball for an hour until they had to go to dinner. I'm sure they will be back before dark.

Best onion rings ever!

Impromptu baseball game!

Did you know they had monkeys in the desert?

There is no cell service here! So I'm writing all this now and I'll upload it when we get service again. Yes, we are using electronics on the this trip. The boys are currently having a doodle jump war and they WILL let me play when I'm done here.

Tom and I went for a walk and met the guy that runs the stables here. He was so nice to talk to. We stood there and talked about being a cowboy and retiring, etc. It was fun. He had a sweet dog and said that we can pet the horses all we want. Tom went by and said goodbye to his friends before we went to bed.

Day Three!

I made egg, ham, and cheese burritos for breakfast! Everyone slept great last night. We were exhausted. We're all showered and ready for the road.

Goodbye KOA!

We stopped at a big SUPER Walmart for supplies and then went to the Route 66 Visitor Center called the Powerhouse. It was very cool. Lots of stuff about the area and about the Great Depression. I got a metal sign for the house. The boys checked out the railroad near the parking lot. They wanted to see if they could hear a train coming. 

They tried to ride Tom and Jake out on a rail!

A guy working at the gift shop said that we should check out Hualapai Mountain and we went straight there. It's pretty. Lots of trees and trails. We're staying the night!

Heading out on the trail.

It was a little tough getting a spot. I don't think it's made for campers. :)) A guy camping there pointed us to the perfect spot for us and we love it. The boys went off to a nearby playground and radio us that there were deer there.

We went on a long walk down another part of the campground and Jake spotted an Elk and her fawn! And a big snake on a rock. We took lots of pictures and then started to make our way back to the campground. When we looked back the Elk was still there! It looked like they were following us. We didn't see anymore animals.

Mama and Baby

Snake on the rocks!

After dinner we went on another shorter walk and Tom was being obnoxious. Then we sat around and ate ice cream. And I made them play Yahtzee with me.

Tom being obnoxious.