We had a great time visiting Dude, Jessi, and Scott. My sister Tiffany came to visit them and see us as well and we all had a blast in Clarkdale, Sedona and the Grand Canyon.
When we got there Tuesday, Jessi and Scott picked us up and we had lunch with Dude. Then we went to their house and all of the travelers had naps (Scotty too) while we waited for Dude to get home. Then Jessi made us a yummy dinner and we watched American Idol. I used every phone in the house to vote for Kris. Haha!
Wednesday we did some grocery shopping for our road trip to Northern Arizona. After that we went to the Science Center. It was cool. I think Scotty liked it, they had a good amount of stuff for his age. Our favorite was the mindball game.
http://www.novelquest.com/mindball.html It was fairly accurate. When my dad started asking Michael about work he started to lose against me although my thought patterns jumped too because I know it stresses him. COOL! That evening we had another yummy dinner and watched the Idol finale (YAY! Kris won!) Tiffany flew in that night and Dude picked her up.
Thursday morning we drove to Sedona. Very uncharacteristic for Arizona, it started to rain! We were so worried because our plan was to camp at a KOA near the Grand Canyon. On our way to Sedona we stopped and had a picnic lunch.
When we got to Sedona we checked into our little motel and walked to Bashas for some of their famous donuts. Then we took Scott and Sam (Dude's dog) to the park so they could run and play after the long drive.
Then we headed over to the Blazin M' Ranch for dinner. The food wasn't the best but, the entertainment was GREAT! We each shot six rounds at a target and looked around in their little old west town shops. The music and show after dinner was good!
The following day we took a scenic drive to Clarkdale for a train ride through the Verde Canyon. All day we had amazing views and fortunately the rain mostly stayed away.
Then we drove from Clarkdale to Williams, AZ where our KOA was. On the way the rain caught up to us in a big way. It was pouring! We developed a back-up plan of negotiating with the KOA people to give us their largest cabin (The Chalet)
for half price and they could release our tent sight and smaller cabin to someone else. Thank heavens after some negotiations (learned from my conflict resolution class) and mom and dad's negotiation skills we got it just as we had planned! We woke up several times in the night because it was raining so hard. We were saying prayers of thanks to be out of the rain especially with little Scotty!
Saturday morning we woke up with high hopes that the forecaster would be right that there was only a 30% chance of rain at the Grand Canyon for the day. We drove the hour to the Grand Canyon and imagine our chagrin when we parked and walked to the rim and the canyon was filled with... wait for it.... CLOUDS! We couldn't see beyond 100 feet down. BOOHOO! Well we decided to hike Bright Angel anyway thinking at least it won't rain. Well we meandered over there eating our picnic lunch along the way and by that time the sun was shining brightly and the clouds had dissipated. So we got our first view of the canyon at lunch. Impressive! We all started down into the canyon and about 1 mile into it Dad said he couldn't go any further (he has all kinds of aches and pains these days) so he stayed put on a little rock seat he found. And the rest of us continued on. We were trying to make it to the mile and a half house but, then Mom and Dude pooped out (He was carrying a 30 lb. boy on his back!) So we had a snack, took a few pictures and turned back.
That night on the way back to our Chalet we stopped at the main drag in Williams (Old Route 66!) and got groceries to make cowboy dinners. While the dinners cooked, we swam in the indoor pool.
Sunday morning we woke up again with the hopes that the rain would stay away. Well, just as soon as we got back to the Grand Canyon it started raining again! We ate lunch in the cars and tried to wait it out then we ventured out when it let up but, it came right back this time with lightening right by us! So we hurried back to the cars. Finally, we decided to ride the shuttles around and we got off at Yavapai Observation Station and enjoyed some great views as the weather finally cleared up again.
The last thing we did was the best! We hiked the rim on Hermit Road
. It was late afternoon and it was a gorgeous, easy hike.
That night we headed back to the cabin and had hamburgers courtesy of Tiffany's yummy recipe. Dessert was s'mores!
Monday morning we got up and hurried back to Phoenix which seemed fast because almost the whole trip was down hill. We had lunch at In'N'Out Burger (my first time) and swam at a fun pool that had cute kiddie stuff and diving boards!
We flew home Tuesday. We are tired and we miss everyone but, we had a great time! We were truly blessed to have such a good trip!
