July 7th Our Last Day!

July 7th Our Last Day!

Our last day was a good day, but bittersweet. Phil had to work, so Aaron and I walked along the beach, ate at a REALLY good mexican restaurant (finally Aaron likes mexican food!) and did our laundry. Packing is always a hassel when your going home. But we took off at 10:30 pm and didn't get home until the following day at 10:00 am. The time change is a little dificult to get used to. Our flight back was nice but we were both really tired. It's good to be back to see family and friends, but we miss the West! We are actually getting pictures up today hopfully of our trip! Check back soon for the pics, Aaron took some really good ones.

July 6th Blessed Sleep!

July 6th Blessed Sleep!

Sleeping in is one of my favorite things to do in life. It is glorious especially when you didn’t get a lot of sleep the day before and did a really strenuous activity. We slept in until around ten today. It was great. The final Wimbledon match was on t.v. today and it was a really good match between Federer and Nadal (don’t ask for first names-I’d never even heard of them until today). Nadal won and we took off to the beaches. Phil drove us around to Laguna Beach, Newport (which should be called “People with sinful amounts of money Beach”) and San Clemente. These beaches were gorgeous. They have the rocky cliffs with the sand and incredible water. The houses are gorgeous too and the whole area looks lush with beautiful flowers and greenery. We watched some really good surfers from the beach and right before left we saw dolphins swimming down the coast right in front of us. They were so close to the shore, it looked like we could swim out to them and play. Tomorrow is our last day of vacation. It has been a once in a life time trip.

July 5th Kayaking in the Channel Islands

July 5th Kayaking in the Channel Islands

Today we went kayaking on the coast of one of the Channel Islands. We signed up with a place that will take you out to the island where you kayak and eat lunch. We awoke at 5:00 in the morning to get to this place by seven. Our boat ended up leaving around nine and the journey took an hour. We were already tired and the day hadn’t even begun at that point. The kayaks were not the best to use but we made it work. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but after that we were awesome. My arms were very sore at the end of the day. The water there is blue but not Caribbean blue. The boat ride was fun and we saw lots of dolphins and seals (or sea lions?). We had a seal come up above the water at one point and watch us paddle by. There were some really cool rock formations and we got to paddle underneath an arch a few times. There were a ton of starfish on the rocks and that was very cool to see. We’ve never seen any in the wild. The water here is really cold, so when it splashed up on you, you froze. Despite the cool water, the day was perfect: sunny, no smoke, no sunburn. When we got home, I took a really hot shower for my sore muscles. My arms don’t hurt at all but my shoulders do. We ate at a really yummy Italian place for dinner and watched a movie that we all fell asleep to. It was wonderful. We are really enjoying these last few days of our trip.

July 4th Happy Birthday America!

July 4th Happy Birthday America!

Let’s just say that people here on the beach are like college freshman with tons of money. People are everywhere and drunk. The beach is a fun place, but not today. We drove around downtown today which was cool. We saw a lot of homeless people. The buildings here are pretty cool because they different designs. We went to the Griffin observatory in the Hollywood Hills and that was amazing. They had all sorts of science exhibits and it overlooks the entire city of L.A. We drove around Beverly Hills and went to Rodeo drive. No celebrity sighting yet unfortunately. The day ended with the sound of fireworks and good conversation. We enjoyed a very laid back 4th of July.

July 3rd The Beach!!

July 3rd The Beach!!

So it was a long day of driving, but we are finally here! It took us two hours once we got into L.A. to get to our cousin Phil’s house. I won’t go into the driving, it was really boring. We did see Big Sur and the surrounding areas. Big Sur was this beautiful vacation spot on the coast and it is being destroyed by fire. The road was blocked from going into the town and you could see the fires on the hillside. We didn’t know the road was closed until we got there and had to turn around. That section of highway one is some of the most beautiful coastline in CA. So, we did get to see some of it. Once we were in L.A., I took a really long, desperately needed shower. It is great to take a shower that is longer than six minutes and that you don’t have to pay three dollars in quarters for. We ate at this really great Mexican restaurant. Of course, EVERY restaurant on these beaches is really good. We walked around Hermosa, Redondo and Manhattan beaches and then drove up to hillside and looked out on to the coast. It was a beautiful site.

July 2nd Napa Valley

July 2nd Napa Valley

Napa valley is so beautiful. It is different than what I thought it was going to be. The rolling hills are golden (well, it looks like dead grass, but it apparently when it rains, the grass turns green) with smallish trees. It looks like how I think Tuscany looks like. We stopped at Frances Ford Coppola’s vineyard and ate pizza. That place is awesome! There was a waiter/wine person there talking about his vineyard. He said that Mr. Coppola’s movies once paid for his wines, now his wines pay for his movies. The whole place was very cool. After we left there, we drove to San Francisco and ate dinner there. The city is so cool. We drove down Lombard street which is the street that switches back and forth at an extreme angle. Aaron had a lot of fun driving on all the crazy streets. Now, we are just trying to get to L.A. we are finally tired of driving and it is only another day to our final destination.

July 1st The Redwood Forest

July 1st The Redwood Forest

YEA! We can see the coast! Everything looks so beautiful here. I think it is because of the wind from the sea that we can see clearly. The coast is rocky and cold and there are a lot of old seaside towns that are really cool to see. One thing that we are seeing a lot of is million dollar homes on the coast (which doesn’t surprise anyone!) We drove thru the redwood forest which was so amazing. The trees are SO tall and the forest is so pretty. We didn’t stay too long there, but we did walk around a little. not a whole lot to talk about on a road trip when your just driving. We will put up our pictures when we get to L.A.

July 1st The Redwood Forest and San Francisco

July 1st The Redwood Forest and San Francisco

YEA! We can see the coast! Everything looks so beautiful here. I think it is because of the wind from the sea that we can see clearly. The coast is rocky and cold and there are a lot of old seaside towns that are really cool to see. One thing that we are seeing a lot of is million dollar homes on the coast (which doesn’t surprise anyone!) we drove thru the redwood forest which was so amazing. The trees are SO tall and the forest is so pretty. We didn’t stay too long there, but we did walk around a little. We drove to San Francisco and ate dinner there. The city is so cool. We drove down Lombard street which is the street that switches back and forth at an extreme angle. Aaron had a lot of fun driving on all the crazy streets. Now, we are just trying to get to L.A. we are finally tired of driving and it is only another day to our final destination.

June 30th The Oregon Coast

June 30th The Oregon Coast

Today we are traveling down the Oregon coast. Aaron has always wanted to see the coast and I have heard that it is beautiful. We had planned to leave in the morning from Salem, but morning turned into afternoon. So, we got started a little later than we wanted, but we had fun visiting with Don and Tricia. The coast is simply breathtaking. I don’t know if it is overcast all the time but today it was. The clouds are so low that they run into the trees on the hill top and it looks amazing. The coast is rocky and winding with beautiful tress and steep cliffs. It makes you laugh at how beautiful it is. We saw sea lions swimming and numerous lighthouses. Aaron has a cousin that lives in Coos Bay and we stopped by her house and stayed the night. It has been a wonderful, unexpected tour of Oregon. We love being able to see family and to see where they live. Tomorrow we will continue on to CA. Hopefully we will be able to see the coast!

June 29th Salem

June 29th Salem

Today, we got to sleep in glorious late. We went to breakfast at 1:30pm and drove around the city with Don and Tricia. There was a lavender festival at an artist cottage. This place was straight out of a Thomas Kincaid photo. The lavender gave a sweet scent through the air. The cottage is surrounded by lush green vineyards. Gorgeous! We ate dinner at this great seafood place tonight. Tomorrow, we will continue on to Portland and then on to the coast. We have enjoyed talking art and photography with Don and Tricia. Tricia is an “ink” artist. She does pointalism paintings. She is an incredible artist. Don is a professional photographer and he did the pictures of our wedding. We really enjoyed crashing their place!

June 28th Crater Lake

June 28th Crater Lake

One good thing that I have learned from my husband Aaron is to be flexible. Although his “non-planning on road trips” can be a source of frustration for this planner, not having a plan can be really helpful. Case and point: California. We wanted to see CA in all its glory with mountains and green vineyards and clear blue skies. God wanted us to see something else, something unexpected: Oregon. On our way to Crater Lake, the news of all the fires got worse, there are not enough firefighters to fight them and a lot of the 1,400 fires have to be left to burn. So, we looked at the map and figured out when we needed to be in L.A. and decided to drive the coast of Oregon. Aaron’s aunt and uncle live in Salem, so we crashed there place (those sweet people!). First, we did go to Crater Lake and drove half way around the rim. The lake is beautiful, it is on top of a volcano. The water is crystal clear, the trees are a deep green and the snow gives the lake a cool contrast. The mosquitoes were the size of birds and ate us up. We didn’t stay long there, all the campsites were closed because it was too cold. We drove thru the Umpqua national forest, the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. We made it to Salem late and enjoyed some late night conversations. Tomorrow, we will sleep in and hang out with the family.

June 27th Lassen Volcanic National Park

June 27th Lassen Volcanic National Park

Today we are driving to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Just hearing the name “volcanic” made me not want to go. I’ve seen volcanic rock and so on and I thought “what’s the big deal?” Little did I know, it is some of the prettiest mountains I have seen in a long time. First, the smoke here is a lot less than anywhere else that we have gone. So just being able to see in true color makes it beautiful. Second, the ground cover is beautiful wildflowers. It looks like spring here. It is very postcard like. There are bright green lush meadows that have winding streams with deer grazing. It harkens one back to the exquisite acquisition of the long battled and fought for master sword which lay in the holy and isolated meadow of Hyrule…the warriors quest. There is still a little snow here but the air is warm so it throws you off a little bit. There are lakes up in these mountains that have emerald green water that is clear all the way down to the bottom. The pine scent is intoxicating and smells so sweet.

Then, there’s the sulfur. That doesn’t smell so sweet. There are only in a few spots but it doesn’t take away the beauty of this place. We hiked to a place called “Bumpass Hell” and it had a huge area with all the sulfur vents and boiling mud and water. It was the coolest thing to see. And a little bit scary because the air steaming out of the ground is about 320 degrees. There are a couple of plants that love to grow on the edge of these pits and they are gorgeous! The grass around them is called “ bog laurel” and the flowers are “forest heather”-I think that is what they are anyway. It is such a stark contrast to the different shades of gold and yellow from the pits. We still haven’t seen any bears, but we are still on the look out.

*One question for my uncle Jim: there is a bird here that has a silver/gray body (Aaron thinks that it had a solid black body and looked like fancy crows), black wings with a white feathers on the end and a white strip on the tail feathers. What is this bird? It was making some crazy mating sounds that cracked us up.

June 26th Yosemite

June 26th Yosemite

Disappointed we arrived and disappointed we stayed. Yosemite is worse with the smoke situation. There is an overlook that you can see the whole Yosemite valley from and if you know of it, it is usually beautiful and awe inspiring. Today, you couldn’t even see “El Capitan.” El Capitan is one of the most famous cliffs to see there and you see from almost everywhere. We will post pictures what it is supposed to look like and what we saw.

*by the way, our pictures are experiencing technical difficulties. We will try to fix it, but it might be awhile. Sorry!

We spoke with a park ranger about all the smoke and she said that the entire San Joaquin valley is under an air quality hazard warning. We have driven thru probably 400 miles of smoke; from Bakersfield thru Sacramento (so far).

But, the smoke does provide some pretty pictures but it really has put a downer on this leg of our vacation. We hiked around on the valley floor and took a few drives around the park and saw some really beautiful countryside. We were going to take a huge hike to the top of the Upper falls of Yosemite, but since you can’t see the valley from the top, there is really no point. Since the smoke isn’t going anywhere for the time being, we decided to change some trip plans and take off a day early from Yosemite. Tomorrow, we are going to start making our way to Crater Lake, Oregon!

June 25th Kings Canyon

June 25th Kings Canyon

Sequoia canyon is a very beautiful place to visit and I highly recommend it to anyone. Kings canyon is right next door and is also beautiful…so I’ve heard. In California, wildfires are a constant in the summers and this summer is no different. It is so amazingly smokey here, you can’t see Kings Canyon. You can drive through it and see what is right in front of you, but everything else is behind a fog of smoke. Despite the smoke, what we saw of kings was very beautiful. There is a river called “Kings River” in the canyon with class five rapids. In case you don’t know what class five rapids are, they are the most extreme rapids rivers can have. They kill professionals. The NPS doesn’t let anyone go on them anymore. But they were very cool to see. I saw a rattlesnake on the side of the road but not much else. We stopped at this little place on the side of the road to eat and the man who owned the shop said that we should get our money back because we can’t see the canyon! Aaron thought the man a genius because that was precisely what he thought as well. So, disappointed, we left Kings canyon and we are on our way to Yosemite.

June 24th Sequoia & Kings Canyon

June 24th Sequoia & Kings Canyon
Our Two Year Anniversary!

We ended up sleeping in the car on the way to Sequoia. I didn’t mind it this night because I was so tired and just wanted to sleep. We woke up near a very pretty town and ate breakfast and had starbucks. We drove to Sequoia and Kings Canyon-they are two different national parks but right next to each other. The drive into sequoia was amazing! The landscape is so different than what we had been seeing for the past week. We came from desert to forest in a couple of hours. The hillsides are very steep and the ground covering is beautiful green ferns. Sequoia trees are the largest trees in the world and their bark is a deep red-brown. The base of a sequoia can be 30 feet around! The biggest one is 40 feet around. Everything here is so lush and green. The smell of pine and nature are just to die for. I wish I could bottle up the fresh air and smell it every time I miss the west. We went on a small hike around the visitor center. Since we are now in bear country, we were constantly looking for them. We haven’t seen any yet but I would like to see one-from the safety of our car! Being in bear country gives us a different experience. We have to take out all of our food, toiletries, clothes that we ate in and anything else that has a scent and put them into a bear proof metal box that the campgrounds provide. You can’t even leave it in your car! Talk about scary.
In the park, there are only small little snack bars to eat at or really expensive lodges. Fortunately, we found a sign advertising an all-you-can-eat BBQ. Since we couldn’t really celebrate our anniversary in style we did gorge ourselves at this place. We had ribs, chicken, corn on the cob, potato salad, coleslaw, corn bread, beans, homemade apple pie and pink lemonade. Yummy! We made smores later at our campsite. It was a wonderful end of our anniversary.

June 23nd Death Valley

June 23nd Death Valley

Yes, I truly understand why it is called Death Valley. One can’t even explain it unless you have experienced it. Today it was only 117 degrees. It has gotten up to 130! It is a very desolate place. There are some pretty spots, but they are few and far between. We went to a place called “Devil’s Golfcourse” and that litereally felt like an oven. You know when you first open up the oven when it’s really hot and your face gets that burst of hot air? That is what it is like getting out of the car, but it stays that way. The breeze hurts your body. I was surprised in learning that back in the day when the people who named it “death valley”, that only one of them had died. Also, I more people die there each year in single car accidents than heat stroke! Weird huh? But, your mortality is never so apparent than in this place. You literally are one hour without water away from death. I could see dying out here. We were going to camp here (I know, we are CRAZY!) but decided to keep on driving to Sequoia. The settlers had a famous saying that I truly understand now: “Goodbye Death Valley!”

June 22nd Las Vegas

June 22nd Las Vegas

So, we weren’t impressed by Las Vegas. The city away from the strip is not pretty at all, and the strip just has a bunch of lights and naked girls. The casinos looked cool and the few that we went into were impressive, but I could leave it and not have missed it. we stayed at the Tropicana (and it still looks as if it were in the 50’s) because there were not a lot of options in the “cheap hotel” range. At least it was a shower and an actual bed (with mirrors on the ceiling-yuck!). We walked around the Venetian Hotel and that was really cool because it actually looks like the canals. We ate at the casino called “New York, New York” in an Italian restaurant with some of the best fresh pasta I have ever tasted. By the time we were done eating, it was midnight and we had seen enough of Las Vegas. All we wanted to do is sleep in a real bed. Off to Death Valley tomorrow.

June 22nd Angel’s Landing

June 22nd Angel’s Landing

We did the Angel’s Landing hike today. Let me give you a little reference: Angel’s landing is one of the most highly technical hikes that one can do without climbing equipment. It is a steep straight up and straight down hike with some serious switchbacks. And, people die almost every year on this thing. You can walk up it and get to a point where you are safe not to go further, but once you reach the “point of no return” , you are holding on to a cliffside by chains! It is worth it to go see but it is freighting at times. I am surprised that they let people even do this hike. The only warning they have is for people who are afraid of heights and to hold on to the chains! But, we did it. The views are breathtaking and very humbling. That was the last hike in Zion, next stop: Las Vegas!

June 21st Springdale, Utah

June 21st Springdale, Utah

Oh the soreness! I couldn’t even move my legs this morning. My knees were swollen, my feet and ankles too. Aaron’s ankles are completely swollen as well. Today is a day that we didn’t want to have to do, but it will be better in the long run. Aaron and I were trying to get backcountry permits for this awesome slot canyon called the “subway.” It is under ground sort of and it looks exactly like a subway tunnel with beautiful pools of water that reflect the sky. The permits are first come, first serve and people wait in line for hours before the park opens up. Aaron had gotten one permit for today and was going by himself on this hike. We were trying for both of us but it wasn’t meant to be. I was planning on staying behind and do laundry etc. but Aaron decided to stay behind with me and rest his body as well. We just hung out today in the small town of Springdale. They have little shops and cafes with the gorgeous mountains behind them. One café that we loved eating at was “Oscar’s.” They have the best burgers around and they serve them with sweet potato fries. I know, I didn’t think that they would be good either, but they are really tasty. We also ate at another place that serves the best BBQ chicken pizza (even heather would like this stuff!). In the evening, we drove up to the east entrance of Zion at sunset. What an amazing site. The red rocks glow in their full beauty with the sun shining hot and red. The shadows across the land give it a mystery that one can’t resist wanting to explore. We wanted to jump out and walk for miles. But since we could barely get out of the car, we took pictures from the passenger window! It was a good and relaxing day today.

June 20th “the Narrows”

June 20th “the Narrows”

Oh, the narrows. I have been waiting for this day. The narrows is a hiking trail that is up the (very ice cold) Virgin River. The river is small and the walls that are around it are very high and made of sandstone. It is a very cool hike to go one. We woke up this morning and rented these water shoes with neoprene socks to keep your feet warm. We started the hike a little later than we wanted, but we reached the river at the beginning of the hottest part of the day. The cold water felt so good. I thought I was going to die trying to walk up stream but it was actually not bad. We walked three-four hours up stream. The water isn’t too high because it is a dry season for them but it did get up to my shoulders at one point-the cold totally takes your breath away. The river has huge rocks in it, so the whole time your have to check your step and you slip often. We had these wooden walking sticks that help you keep your balance and it saved me several times from falling in. Aaron got some cool pictures of us in the river, although we were both nervous about his camera. People would walk by and say “do you want us to take your picture?” Aaron would very politely say “no thank you.” Little do they know that I don’t like even touching Aaron’s camera in fear of doing something to it. One our way back down river, I was constantly fighting the currant so that I wouldn’t get tripped up. I actually preferred going up stream because you don’t get tripped up as easily. But I could tell that my legs were going to be sore from this journey. Toward the end, my body was screaming to stop. When we got back to civilization, we had on wet clothes, huge water logged shoes and looked like someone had beat us up. We were exhausted!! We missed the hours for the public showers in town so we had to go without tonight. This is the first day that we haven’t been able to take a shower. Hopefully we will tomorrow.

June 19th Day of Rest (for our swollen ankles)

June 19th Day of Rest (for our swollen ankles)

There are several things that happen to people when they are out enjoying nature and hiking; the thrill of adventure and conquering the wilderness, quality time with one’s spouse. Those are the happy times. On the other hand you get to share; dripping sweat, dirt caked on your face legs and anywhere else that you used sunscreen, certain frustrations with the weaker partner for not having the physical capabilities that the strong one has etc. Both Aaron and I have swollen ankles and sore calf muscles today. It’s a good thing that we are driving just a couple of hours away to Zion today because we couldn’t hike today if we wanted to.

We got to Zion in the early afternoon and took a drive through the east entrance, which is indescribable. All I can say is, those Mormons weren’t lying when they named it Zion. It looks like heaven. Well, to those who like this sort of thing. The mountains are red stone and the trees are so green with the cloudless blue sky behind them. What an amazing contrast! Everything is so big here. You tend to feel really small and vulnerable. Aaron and I talk about what heaven will be like and we hope we will be able to climb up and over mountains and jump down cliffs without hurting ourselves. I have always thought about if God lets us fly like birds, how fun that would be and I would want to fly around this place. The cliffs make you want to get out and explore and hike around. There is nothing like this place. I can’t wait to explore this land and worship God for the works of His hands.

June 18th Bryce Canyon

June 18th Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon! How beautiful! Bryce is a canyon full of “hoodoos,” which are huge columns of rock that are formed by water erosion. In this canyon, the colors are a brilliant orangey-red, white with a tint of purple. The colors are formed by reactions with the water (white is limestone and purple is magnesium). There is not a bad picture in the place. There are a lot of trails to go on, some more intense than others. I have never been around so many foreigners in my life. About half of the people on the trails were speaking a different language. We loved it. The trail that Aaron and I went on was the queen’s garden trail that led into the peek-a-boo loop trail. Talk about intense hiking. The queen’s trail wasn’t bad at all. Most people on that trail were families with kids and older folks. There were a lot of chipmunks and small prairie dogs on the trail. The peek-a-boo loop trail was either straight up, straight down or a switchback trail which definitely kills your ankles and knees. Every turn on the trail looked so different than the rest and Aaron got a lot of pictures. We would pass people on horses and I was so envious because all I wanted to do was to sit down and not walk anymore. Eight hours later, we were finally done with our hike! In the guidelines to back country hiking, it is suggested that each person carry a gallon of water each because you need it. The day of our hike, we both drank our entire gallon of water and only had to pee once in 32 hours!

The wildlife out here is mostly the same as “up north.” Deer, squirrels, chipmunks, hawks and lizards. This night after our long day, we were driving to our tent and saw two baby foxes playing in a hole. They were very cute and didn’t know to be afraid of humans yet. I hope to not ever see snakes but I know they are out there. Well, we are off to Zion national park next and I am so excited to see it because Aaron has so many stories of this place. We are planning to go on “the narrows” river trail and “angel’s landing” hike. More tomorrow.

June 17th Horseshoe Bend

June 17th Horseshoe Bend

Today we are on our way to Horseshoe bend and the Antelope Slot canyon in Page, Arizona. When you leave GC, there is nothing- for hours. Well, actually it was an hour and a half, but it still felt like hours. We left the Kaibab national forest and headed north toward our destination. We stopped at a place that didn’t have a name other than “scenic view” to see a small canyon that had a dry river bed in it. It was a pretty little canyon and one could fall to their death if not careful. There are no signs warning that the edge of the rock that you were standing on is the cliff with nothing beyond it. It gave us the heebie-jeebies. Another heebie-jeebie moment was horseshoe bend. As you can imagine, is a river that makes a horseshoe shape bend in the landscape. It is another “walk to the ledge and stare straight down” place, as if it was saying “stay away from me lucky charms!”

Now, it’s storey time. So, Aaron and I drive to Page, ate lunch and looked into getting a tour of the “antelope slot canyon.” We decide on the cheapest place and signed up. This place we went was accommodating 30 Chinese tourists, a French couple, a German family, a guy from southern California, and us. Since they needed to keep the Asians together for translating purposes, the rest of us rode in their suburban. The tour uses Navajo tour guides because the slot canyon is on the Navajo Indian reservation. Our guide was a little woman, about 5’0’’ with a piercing loud tour-guide voice. She was driving the suburban with the seat pulled all the way up to the steering wheel as she told us a little history about Page and the Navajo reservation. It’s only a five minute drive to where we entered “the rez” and she drove the car through a limited access entry point. All of the sudden, we were in sand about one and half to two feet deep, which is in a flash flood plane. There was no road, you just made it as you went along, which ended up being very bumpy. The two small German kids thought it was fun. We rode for about five minutes and then came to a wall with a bunch of other suburbans around it. We made it! Aaron was getting his camera out, along with the other people, and the guide starts touching every ones cameras and telling them to set the ISO to 400. Ok, she’s just being nice and telling people what is best for the lighting conditions (the slot canyons are very dark). Then, for the next forty-five minutes, we hear “stand here!” “Take this picture” “Don’t get the sunlight in your picture” “Take your family’s picture here!”, “Let me take this picture for you!” I kept expecting her to say “No soup for YOU!” The poor single guy from CA had his camera taken from him at least ten times for her to take pictures for him. Luckily, she never came near Aaron’s camera. At the end of the tour, she told us to turn around and go back thru the canyon and she would be right behind us. The German guy cracked a joke about her prodding the cattle heard back to the car. Alas we made it through the tour. One the way back to our cars, we found out that the German family is actually from MI and are moving back to Germany. They are also going on the same “tour of the west” as we are. Such a small world. We left Page and went on to Bryce Canyon to catch the sunset and begin the next leg of the journey.

p.s. pictures coming soon!

June 16th “It’s the altitude…”

June 16th “It’s the altitude…”

Today was a perfect day for hiking in GC. I’m not sure what the temperature was but it was sunny and with blue skies and a lovely breeze. We first stopped at a lookout called Yaki point. It has a great view of the canyon. There are always a lot of foreign people visiting the “west” because it is what t is. I enjoy hearing all of the different languages and we always try to figure out where they are from. Every time we hear Spanish, Aaron asks me what they said (I’m not that good at it, unless I’m talking with an infant). I can’t help but to think about God’s beautiful creation and praise Him for this little canyon He made and to hear these other tongues speak the beauty of this place. I love being in nature and worshipping Him through enjoying it and knowing without a doubt that this was made by His hand.
In GC, there is so much to see if you are physically able to hike. A lot of people take little walks which are nice but we wanted to see more. Aaron had done some intense hikes with his friend Justin Morgan (this is the same Justin Morgan who is training for the Iron Man!) and wanted to revisit some that they had done. Thank goodness God knows better! One hike called “Dripping Springs” which was very difficult (but worth it, apparently) was closed off along with a few others for construction (for the road, not the trail). The other trail was too far away and so we settled on “Bright Angel.” We went down this very steep trail about mile. We saw a lot of people riding mules along this trail. Let me tell you how smart THOSE people were! This trail coming back up almost killed me! First of all, it was VERY steep. Second of all, it’s the altitude that gets to us. Me especially. I refuse to say that it is because I am not in shape that I can’t walk up steep trails. But alas we made it to the top and decided to be done for the day. It was a good warm-up hike for us. We wanted to get back to a place called “Hopi Point” for the sunset, so we ate dinner really quick and showered to get back in time. We missed the really good lighting for pictures, but we did see a fantastic sunset. On our way back to the car, we heard a bunch of Dutch people talking and pointing at the ditch next to us. Inside, grazing as if no one was taking pictures of them, were two elk. That was very cool and sort of weird because it was the busiest place in the village. It was a good end to our day.

June 15th “Its 42 degrees…”

June 15th “Its 42 degrees…”

…in Celsius that is! That translates into 110 degrees Fahrenheit! We arrived in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday June 14th. When we got off the plane, it was 110 degrees. Aaron’s childhood friend Kevin Korczyk and his beautiful fiancée Valerie live in Mesa and they let us stay at their house. The house was beautiful with a pool in the back and the back porch had “mist-ers” with a nice spray of water to cool you. It was wonderful for us to get together and catch up and (for me) to meet new friends. We stayed with Kevin and Val for the day on sunday and took off for the Grand Canyon. The drive going into a place called verde valley was awesome. The sun was setting against the valley and it was just BEAUTIFUL! Flagstaff is the closest big city to the Grand Canyon so we stopped there for starbucks and took the scenic route to GC. Unfortunately, the sun sets around 7:45pm and so we drove thru it in the dark. It was still a pretty drive with all the trees…

tha-thunk.

…dead rabbit.

We were even looking for animals on the side of the road! Anyway, we arrived very late and the canyon was closed. Luckily, there is a camp ground just outside of GC and so we slept there- in the car (everyone who knows that aaron is not a big plan-aheader is smiling right now). Not highly recommended. Needless to say, our first night on the road was cold and uncomfortable. Maybe we will get lucky with the campground in GC tomorrow.

Welcome

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog! This blog was created so that our friends and family could come on along our three week road trip out west with us. First, a little history: Aaron and I were married on June 24th 2006. We live in an apartment in MI and love it. No yard work, free heat. It’s great. Aaron has the summers off and we wanted to plan a big trip to start this summer off with a bang. We hope you enjoy our semi-daily posts (when internet available) and Aaron’s pictures (with his new camera!).