The Grand Canyon

As some of you might know, the Grand Canyon is one of my favorite places in the world. In 2005, my mom, 2 of my good friends, and I hiked to the bottom and back up again. It was a phenomenal experience and I try to get to the Canyon as often as I can. The last time I was there is two years ago with the kids and my mom and dad. Since we are currently about 81 miles from the Grand Canyon, I couldn't pass up an opportunity for a day trip there.

I got the kids up at 6:00 and we were out the door by 7:00. We were at the entry gate at about 8:45. Although we had a short wait at the entry gate, we had a parking place at VerKamps (the best place to park -- next to El Tovar Hotel) and were getting ready for a hike down into the Canyon by a little after 9:00.


I think the kids were almost as excited as I was about a short hike. It was a gorgeous day -- low 80s and brilliantly sunny (although I think it was probably around 110 degrees at the bottom at Phantom Ranch). We hiked down about 35 minutes, and hiked up for about 50 minutes. Bright Angel Trail is a pretty steep hike and the kids did a fantastic job both up and down.


We decided to have lunch at El Tovar where Jay remembered having some wonderful pasta last time we ate there. We were seated at a window table and Jay was not disappointed in his meal.


When we arrived at the Grand Canyon, we entered at the South Entrance, which is the most popular entrance since it is off I-40. I knew we could get back to Flagstaff out of the East Entrance, which I had never done, so we decided to have an adventure. On the way to the East Entrance (or Exit, in our case) is an area called Desert View. The Watchtower there is a well-known landmark, having been designed by architect Mary Colter in the 1930s.


We climbed all the way to the top and got to see some views I had never seen before, like this one of the Colorado River.


The trip home took only slightly longer than the trip there, and we were home by dinner time. The nice part about going to Flagstaff out of the East Entrance is that the Canyon is visible for quite a way along the route. The Grand Canyon is really quite a bit bigger than the area most tourists get to see.

All three of the kids enjoyed themselves on this trip and are planning our next trip, too. Annie wants to see some snow on the Canyon. I might be able to handle cold and snow if it means another trip to the Grand Canyon!

Late Breaking News

The Tooth Fairy has to make another visit tonight!

New Artists

The kids had never been as far as the cairn garden, so I took them there today. They each wanted to add their own cairn.


Annie put a little mushroom on top of hers for a hat.

Michael's is graduated like the stacking boxes young children play with.

Jay's is very cleverly balanced. It looks like it might blow over in the next big wind, but I don't think it will.

Tomorrow we are headed for the Grand Canyon since it's only about 85 miles away. I figure we'll be home for dinner. Cross your fingers that I can get some really great pictures there.

Art in Nature

Along my regular daily hike along the Pumphouse Wash, I've found some artwork. This one looks like one or more people decided to make the best of a bad situation -- broken glass along the trail.

Farther on down the trail, I came upon this cairn (pronounced the way Tim says my name) garden. The area has a lot of rocks and I imagine this is a community project rather than an individual project.


Of course, nobody can beat Mother Nature for beautiful works of art!

College Days

We decided to take a self-guided tour of Northern Arizona University yesterday. It's summer, so the number of students on the campus is limited. We happened to see some members of the band taking advantage of the beautiful weather.


This interesting unnamed sculpture shows some man sitting on top of a stack of books. This building must be the library!


The kids got into a heated debate over some calculus problems in the Mathematics building.


The kids were really impressed with the campus, although I'm still pushing University of Arizona and UCLA for their education.

Fun in Flagstaff

After our morning cartoons, hike, bike ride and picnic, we decided to explore Flagstaff. Our first stop was the Lowell Observatory. We took the daytime tour today and I think we'll take the nighttime tour sometime next week. This is the original1896 telescope that Percival Lowell bought and brought by train to Flagstaff. Lowell used this telescope to see the "canals" on Mars, which proved, he thought, the existence of Martians.


Unfortunately, Lowell died before finding the elusive "Planet X" which eventually became known as Pluto. He's probably turning over in this mausoleum because his Planet X is now considered something less than a planet.

Very close to the Observatory is Thorpe Park where we played a very energetic game of Frisbee golf before returning home.

Happy 12th Birthday Jay!!!

Today is Jay's 12th birthday. Jay wanted it filled with his four favorite things in the world (in no particular order): food, books, music, and sports. He was not disappointed!


Jay was very excited to receive the Shakespearian Insults and Phrases books. I'll be happy about it until he decides to call me a "canker-blossom" or "Lady Disdain" someday.

Tim decided that 12 is the perfect age to start listening to Led Zeppelin. I'm not sure I agree. Notice the new Ryan Theriot jersey Jay is wearing. I'm afraid this will be his new "dress-up" shirt.


Jay is now ready for all of the Sun Devils football games this fall (and basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball games).

Tim made pancakes for breakfast. We had an indoor picnic for lunch (it started raining), with cupcakes and ice cream (vegan, of course) afterwards. We're going out for Mexican food later this evening.

Jay also received a wonderful birthday card today. Listen closely. My siblings will particularly enjoy this one:

What Makes the Doodie?

Tim and I were just hanging out on the swing in the yard when we saw these beautiful animals:

A Hike a Day (at least)

Every morning and most evenings we go for a hike on the trail close to our house. I usually let the kids get a head start and then I do an up-tempo hike to get my heart rate going (which is really quite easy for me to do at 7000 ft.). I wanted to share some of the sites I get to see every day.This view is along the Pumphouse Trail, which is about a ten minute hike from our house. And what is this?

You guessed it -- it's an elk dropping (photo courtesy of Michael). Michael was upset with me because he saw it in the morning and wanted to hike back to it right away to get a picture of it while it was still "fresh." I made him wait until the evening so it didn't have quite the "chocolate chip" look it had in the morning.

I took this photo this morning. This harmless looking cloud is a cumulonimbus cloud (sometimes called a thunderhead) and it may bring another storm this afternoon. I usually stop to make sure the kids are doing o.k. before I head home again. We stay in close contact by walkie-talkie.

In other news, the Tooth Fairy made a stop at our Flagstaff house last night to take possession of Annie's first tooth! We were all happy that he or she knew where we were!

Mountain Monsoon

One of the things I really love about the desert is the monsoons. The cumulonimbus clouds start gathering in the early afternoon and the storms usually hit at night with wonderful lightning shows. I found out today that monsoons occur in the mountains, too. There was no lightning show, but the thunder was fantastic. There was even some hail, which we rarely get in the Phoenix. The clouds started gathering mid-morning and the storm hit at about 3:00 this afternoon.

My desert kids decided they wanted to feel the rain, so out they went. You'll notice that only 2 of the 3 are in the picture. Michael knows to stay out of the rain!

Phoenix averages just over 7 inches of rain a year, while Flagstaff averages just over 22 inches a year (of course, as we midwesterners all know, 10 inches of snow equals about 1 inch of rain). Anyway, I don't think Annie will soon forget what it feels like to be out in the rain.

The air feels fresh and clear now and, maybe, I'll be able to see stars tonight.

Escape From the Heat

It started as a little niggling idea in the back of Tim's mind as he stood in our backyard in May as the temperature neared the mid-90s, "Why don't we escape to someplace cooler this summer?" He thought it might be nice for our children to be able to spend some time outside everyday -- some time longer than the 45 minutes in the pool late every afternoon. He listed an ad in Craig's list and, after a few false starts, he came upon a home for rent at a very good price. Sure, we would have to take care of chickens, but it would be worth it to have high temperatures in the low 80 degree range rather than the 110 and above range. Three weeks in the mountains! What could be better?

The house is a few minutes south of Flagstaff, at almost 7000 ft. The picture above was taken from the trail just behind the house. The trail leads for miles in a lot of different directions and we've taken advantage of the chance to explore since we arrived here last Saturday. The kids are really loving the freedom of being able to get outside any time they want!

We keep our windows open for most of the day, enjoying the cool breeze and the smell of the pine trees.






There is, of course, the issue of the chickens, which I lovingly refer to as "bundles of histoplasmosis." I'm, obviously, not really excited about them, but the kids seem to like them and have named them (although they've all three named them differently -- I don't think chickens are really very smart, though, so it doesn't matter). Our care for the chickens consists of letting them out a couple times a day and making sure they have water, so it's not too overwhelming!

We've yet to get rid of our citified ways, though. We've been taking daily trips to Flagstaff for a variety of reasons. We'll try today to just stay in the forest to see how we like it. We'll probably take a trip into Flagstaff tomorrow again to try out their ice skating rink.