7-24 Arizona to NM

We drove through Petrified Forest National Park first thing in the morning. We went to the visitor center and learned that this area was once a forest and wet swamps. We stopped at some scenic lookouts, saw lots of petrified wood, big and small, and the site of a Puebloan village from about 900 years ago. 

By the village ruins...

Petroglyphs...

The Painted Desert...

The boys did not find this park terribly exciting. Karl turned to me as we were in the visitor center and said,  "Mom, I want to go home." I think we are all feeling ready to go home now. 

We drove the rest of the day, across New Mexico. Outside of Albuquerque we stopped in a western mercantile and got the boys belts to go with their silver belt buckles. In the car, they read books most of the day. We stayed at a motel in Tucumcari, NM. Dinner was a bucket of KFC and a bottle of wine from a convenience store. Hey, we were tired and it was all we could find... 

7-23 Grand Canyon

We walked on the Rim Trail in the morning, about 3 miles from the main visitor center to the old Grand Canyon Village. Lots of great views and we saw a big female elk (we think, might've been a mule deer) right in front of us by the trail. 

We had a breakfast snack and then caught the park shuttle back to where we started. The Grand Canyon was great to see, beautiful, and a little hard to take in. But it feels different from the other parks we've been to, in that you look at it but don't feel as much that you're part of it or IN it. There are a couple of trails that go down into the canyon, and people raft the river, but it's just felt different to us. Around the rim it's very developed with visitor services (gift shops, food, etc). We were ready to go after our morning walk. 

We packed up our camp for the last time, and started our drive. We went south out of the park and drove to Flagstaff, where we found a bookstore and a magic card store. The boys had finished their books and each got the next in the series (Jay points out that his series is called Fablehaven, not whatever I wrote previously).

From Flagstaff we officially turned east to head homeward! We stopped for the night in Holbrook, Arizona. 

7-22 drive to Arizona

Leaving Zion, we drove through the park and through a 1 mile tunnel that goes through the canyon walls. On the way out of the park, four bighorn sheep crossed the road right in front of our car. We didn't get a picture, but a few minutes later, we saw several more of them on the rocks by the roadside!

That's was our first sighting on the trip of bighorn sheep!

From there we drive south into Arizona, along the base of the VermillionCliffs. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. 

After that we drove through the Navajo Indian reservation on our way to the Grand Canyon. Along the way we found silver belt buckles for each of the boys. We also noticed the temperature reached a new high for our trip - 106!!!

We reached the Grand Canyon (south rim, east entrance) in late afternoon, stopping for a bit at the first visitor center and old re-created Indian tower with views of the canyon. 

We were hot and thirsty so we got a snack, and the boys (all three) went crazy over orange soda. There were free refills which proved to be dangerous! Karl burped while drinking and orange soda came out his nose! You'd think we would've learned from the malt incident...

 

We proceeded to our campground which was within the park. The park is a maze of various visitor facilities and it was a big campground, but a nice one. Sites were spread out so it didn't feel crowded and it was pretty quiet. This was our last night of camping on the trip. It cooked off and the temperature was good for sleeping. 

7-21 Zion

We got an early start into the park again  and then split up for different activities. 

Jody and Jay hiked Angels Landing, a difficult 5-mile, steep hike up to a cliff point overlooking Zion Canyon. At points the trail was just a steep slickstone route up a thin ribbon of rock no more than 5 feet wide, with 1000 foot cliffs on each side.

Jay with Angels Landing behind him...

Jay holding the chain 1000 feet above the canyon floor...

Nearly there...

On the way down...

Jay was really proud of completing this hike!

Meanwhile, back on the ground... Kelly and Karl went for a horseback ride. It was a 1 hour trail ride in the canyon within the park. It was a nice ride! He was happy to get to wear his cowboy boots, hat, and bandana. 

After we all met up again, we had lunch at a little Mexican food place in Springdale, just outside the park. Then it was back to our campground for another swim, relaxing, etc. We joined the evening game of candy bar bingo, which was fun and the boys left with some chocolate bars!

That night the crying-baby-family was gone but in their place was a bus load of middle schoolers. So, it was still very noisy. 

7-20 Zion

We were up early and into the park by 7:30. We took the park shuttle bus to the last stop and walked the 1-mile Riverwalk trail along the river. It was a pretty walk with hanging gardens on the canyon walls.

At the end of the trail is where The Narrows hike begins. It is a hike in the narrow canyon, mostly in the river itself. 

The boys picked out walking sticks...

And we marched right into the water in our hiking boots. The water was cool but not cold. It is a strange feeling at first, having wet boots and soggy sloshy socks, but you get used to it quickly. Since it was early morning, the canyon was cool and shady and there weren't a lot of people. We walked along and in the river for 2-3 miles, most of which was pretty shallow, but there were some deeper spots and areas with more rocks and water current. Our hiking poles/ walking sticks were useful for balance in the water. It was an amazing and fun hike, with tall canyon walls around us and a new place around each bend. 

Eventually we came to a fork in the river and went into a narrower canyon and had to go through some deeper water to get into it. 

Not long after that we decided to turn around and head back. On the way back we crossed tons of people going the other way, so we were glad we'd gone early. Back At the trail, we took off our wet boots and put on dry shoes, then went back up the Riverwalk and caught the shuttle bus back to the visitor center. Overall the hike was 6-8 miles and took us about 4 hours. It was one of our favorites. 

It was another baking hot afternoon so we had some relaxing time in the air conditioned lounge at the campground. 

7-19 drive to Zion

We left Moab and drove south, stopping in a little town of Richfield at lunchtime to go to a magic card shop. The boys have missed their magic card games and a new set of cards had just come out, so they wanted to get some cards. 

We went to a diner for lunch and it was so hot out that we got ice cream malts too. Our thoughts were a little bigger than our stomachs...we felt a little over-malted...

(Too-much-malt faces:)

We continued on to Zion, arriving in late afternoon at our campground, which was an RV park in Virgin, Utah near Zion NP. The facilities at the campground were nice but it was crazy hot (100 degrees) and the tents were close together. It was also very noisy. That night we were between a group of French speakers who stayed up late talking loudly around their campfire, and on the other side a family with a baby that screamed and cried over and over during the night. We had to put headphones on the boys and let them listen to music to try to drown it all out. Even so, it was hard to get to sleep. We've come to dread bedtime at campgrounds because they are so noisy.   If you were in an RV it would be fine, you could close the curtains and run a fan. In a tent you hear every little noise. 

7-18 Delicate Arch

Today we went back to Arches NP and hiked to Delicate Arch. It was a long ascent up the slickrock. We started early so it wasn't too hot. When we reached the top there was an amazing view of the arch. 

We were up quite high and the arch was huge. The boys and Jody walked behind the arch and down below it. 

Jody and jay far below on the rim...

In the afternoon we were back at the motel for a swim, laundry, reading, etc. 

For dinner we walked across the street to a pizza restaurant for the pizza and salad buffet. Yum!