Summer Road Trip, pt 4

Welcome back to the road trip series. Sorry for the short delay in posting, I had the flu last week and wasn't feeling up to anything but sleep (and re-reading the entire Twilight series in 4 days, but that's an entirely different subject!). I'm feeling much better, and ready to share more pictures with you.

After a fun weekend in Havasu, Chukani headed for Phoenix to spend an evening with our friend Donna's parents. We needed to pick up a toddler bed for Bill and Donna, and her parents offered to host us for the evening, so it was win-win all the way around.

What a fun time we had hanging out over there! Chukani went for a long swim in their pool after Joy made us a delicious lasagna dinner that evening, and Dan-Dad even served us a yummy breakfast the next morning before sending us on our way.

As we traveled back across Arizona and then up to the Grand Canyon the next day, we experienced the stark desert beauty that Arizona has to offer. The Saguaro cactus are amazing. We drove through a whole forest of them one afternoon.


And you get a real sense of how far in the distance you can see with no mountains in the way... the pic above with the gorgeous thunderhead cloud developing looks deceivingly close. But when you can see for 50+ miles, everything looked closer.

We visited Montezuma's Castle and enjoyed the trail around the monument as a chance to stretch our legs. The cliff dwelling ruins were great, the trail takes you right up to them.

And the first of many self-photos. This became a tradition over the week's adventures. In every National Park, we had to take at least one of these photos with some cool scene behind us. Silly, I know.



We left the monument and drove through Sedona on our way to the Canyon. I wish we had been able to spend more time in the Sedona area, it was breathtakingly beautiful. We took a Forest Ranger's advice and drove up to the Airport overlook for wonderful views of the city and red rocks.


The sky was so blue against the magenta-red of the sand sculptures.


Our destination that afternoon was the Grand Canyon... my first visit! We stopped in at our hotel to check-in, and then headed for the south rim to catch sunset on the canyon's edge. It was amazing... cooler temps at the higher altitude, and the view was perfect. Words cannot describe the Grand Canyon, pictures cannot truly capture the immensity and beauty. You just have to go see it for yourself! But don't worry- we took lots of pictures, so we'll share some with you anyway.

Chuck's Aunts and Uncles have a long-standing tradition of calling each other from crazy places and saying... "guess where I am?" Here's Chuck calling his Aunt Nancy to include her in the fun.


There was a rainstorm travelling across the canyon, this is looking towards the distant north-eastern rim.





See... here's another self-pic. We made good use of Chuck's long arms to capture the photos. :)

I have another post set to go later this week, so stay tuned for more pictures of the Canyon.
Thanks for visiting!