Originally, we had planned to go to the Grand Canyon as a spring break trip this year. That obviously got canceled, and we've been staying close to home pretty much since. However, as things begin to open up, as we learn how to navigate this new COVID universe, we were feeling like we could leave the house for a road trip. Ellie and her best girl Lexi are turning ten this month, ten days apart, and we decided that it would be awesome to get out of town for a bit, see some sights, and visit the Grand Canyon. Our original plan was to go glamping, but when we couldn't book the tents, we got ourselves a rental cabin and went from there.
Lexi's family left earlier than us and visited grandparents in Phoenix, and we stopped at Joshua Tree on our way out to Arizona. Tim grew up camping and hiking in Joshua Tree, but I've never been. I've heard a lot about it, but was unprepared for how undeveloped the area is. We felt lucky getting ourselves a very swank room in the nearest motel with two king beds (our spoiled kids were like "why is the sink in the ROOM?") because the other visitors seemed to be serious hikers or serious hippies, and we had brought neither a tent nor psychedelic drugs. But we had a great day of hiking around. The kids were so thrilled that they could do some rock climbing. I love watching them adventure in the great outdoors.
I would definitely come back if we could figure out how to camp. Maybe we'll become an outdoorsy family yet!
From there, we were off to Williams.
We met up with our friends at Bearizona, which is a sort of drive through zoo. The animals are all in separate enclosures, and you drive through and see the deer and the wolves and the bison and then the bears. It was cool! We were there late in the day, and got to watch the bears climb trees and drink from a pond, and got to see a mama bison charge at a pick up truck!
We got settled into our cabin (the kids were thrilled that they had a Kid Cave bunk room) and tried to get to bed early so that we could be up and at it in the morning. We'd booked a guide to do the Bright Angel trail hike, and I must say, I'm glad we did. Our guides were Chris and Elaine. They were both so knowledgeable and friendly and kind - Chris had a young adventurer vibe, Elaine had a calming hippie grandma energy. I think we could have had a much tougher day without them, not because of the actual hiking, but because they did such an amazing job engaging the kids, and knew the answers to all of their questions. We all got a lot out of being able to have our questions answered while walking, and they were really motivating and supportive of the kids when we were hiking the two miles back up to the rim (some of the steps on the way back up are so tall and so steep that poor Judd almost needed a hand up. He still did better than Adam, who practically wanted us to drag him at the end.)
This rock was especially cool - you could see where the rock had split and shifted, and if you look, you can see petroglyphs. Chris also talked to the kids about how the dark coloring of the rock versus the lighter parts shows when the slide happened, because the dark parts are oxidation over time.
We had lunch in this little natural amphitheater, about two miles down. Chris and Elaine had a nice picnic and we made sandwiches and enjoyed the view. Adam was really rambunctious, dancing around and wanting to climb all the rocks, and we kept telling him to save his energy for the walk back up. Did he listen? HE DID NOT.
But, he made it! We all made it.
It was also nice, going with the tour company, because when we walked back to our cars, Chris and Elaine had a cooler full of beverages (no road beers, sadly, but I guess that's reasonable) and snacky food and even candy. Poor Adam was so pooped - he hardly even cared about having a Gatorade, but he did eat a couple of Starburst and then asked where Lamby was. He and Judd slept the entire way back to our cabin, while the girls, Tim and I had a great singalong to various show tunes.
We also stopped at a rock shop, because I love rocks. This amethyst had a matching pair, and they were priced at $20,000. I told the girls, someday when I'm rich, I'm going to have one of these big things on either side of my front door - it's been my dream ever since I saw one at the Nature Conservancy in Boston. While we were hiking, I had the following conversation with Lexi:
Lexi: Meg, why do you know so much about rocks? And when did you start loving jewelry? [we had been talking a lot about birthstones and gemstones, since she got her and Ellie matching opal friendship rings.]
Me: Well, Gigi knows a lot about rocks and has taught me about them. And I've loved jewelry as long as I've been alive.
I will admit, I made Tim brake for basically every rock shop we passed (except later in the trip when we went through Sedona and he wouldn't stop at any crystal healing venues!)
We took it easy the next morning, had coffee on the porch, enjoyed the scenery, and then geared up and headed back out to walk the South Rim trail. We did about two miles of it, from Bright Angel to their geology museum. The kids were fairly whiny on the way out - I've never met children who need quite so many water breaks, but when the trail started doing a geologic timeline, they got very into it. You walk through the 2.1 billion years of the Grand Canyon's existence via the rock layers. They have examples of what rocks are present, and very even markers - the kids loved counting down the time. The way back was better because I bribed them with the promise of ice cream!
The views were absolutely stunning - I wish we'd had more time at the Grand Canyon - I could have walked around all day looking at how it changes in the light. Someday, I'd love to hike to the bottom and then hike out another route.
We also couldn't have asked for better weather. We were mercifully shaded during the majority of our trail hike, and when we walked along the rim trail the weather was warm but not miserable. Could not have asked for two more perfect days.
Also, could not ask for two sweeter friends than these two. This is also so their personalities. Ellie is ready to be a teen, doesn't want to smile in pictures any longer, generally a sass pants. Lexi is a sweet, bookish little thing, always ready with a million questions, wanting to learn.
On Thursday our friends headed home, but we headed off for a little more exploring. We stopped by to see the giant meteor crater outside of Flagstaff (over 4,000 feet wide!)
AND we got Culvers for lunch! Truly, an A+ vacation. Two giant holes in the ground, and my favorite vacation fast food.
Our last night we spent in Jerome, AZ. It's an old mining town that boomed while they were mining cooper, and then went bust after the mines closed in the 1950s. It's built up on a hill, with beautiful views of Sedona, and apparently, it's the most haunted place in the state. Our hotel, the Jerome Grand, is the most haunted building, as it's the former town hospital. We were staying in the former hospice rooms, aka the Croak Rooms. So charming! But we didn't see any ghosts. We did enjoy that we had two adjoining rooms with a big shared bath (so you can share with the other dead and dying, I suppose) and had dinner on our balcony and watched baseball. I'd love to come back to the town during non-pandemic times, perhaps without kids, to go on all the ghost tours and sit on patios enjoying the view and drinking wine. I'd stay at the Jerome Grand again, hopefully so that the ghost cat will come and spoon with me.
The kids did enjoy the town though - we went through the mining museum and they thought all the ghost stuff was really cool. Adam enjoyed going on the swings and the little park, and Ellie and I went and hit up, you guessed it, some rock shops!
This made me laugh so hard.
Yesterday was our big drive home. We stopped in Quartzite to buy rocks, and I took a picture of Ellie in front of this bear, a little more than ten years after I first stopped in the store on the way back from a wedding in Tucson, about halfway through my pregnancy with her.
The kids were such great little travelers. As you can see, they were good about masking up, doing hand sanitizer, keeping their hands to themselves. We tried to be as safe as possible - we only ate one meal actually IN a restaurant, and even then, we were out on the patio, on the other side from the other guests (our first restaurant meal since March!) Perhaps there's more we would have been able to do if we weren't worried about COVID, but being able to enjoy the great outdoors, being able to learn about the geology and the history, being able to see some of the world's most wonderful natural marvels was so worth it. Though we've already had tears about how this weekend will be spent catching up on school work, in part.
