So this year I started homeschooling the boys. It was a personal decision I made hopefully for their benefit. (So far I think it is going well). At any rate David is learning all about the earth this year. We have talked about plate tectonics, earthquakes, and different types of rocks. So it hit me, why not? Lets take a trip to the Grand Canyon. We can look at all sorts of different types of rocks, and see an example of erosion and well just have fun. So we invited some friends along and they wanted to go too (I am actually teaching their son science as well since its just more fun with more than one person). I think it made the trip much more possible for both families cause we could share expenses.
We had a GREAT time. We woke up Monday morning and drove to our friends house. There we unloaded our stuff into their car. Then we headed out. We stopped for a while somewhere in the middle of nowhere cause the kids wanted to go climb on some rocks, explore and stretch their legs. (I should mention this trip was only David, Nathan, myself, and our friends). Then we traveled on. We stopped in Vegas to buy David some shoes since the child grows so fast he didn't fit in the ones we owned for him. Then we stopped at the Hoover dam.
We got to our hotel in Williams, Arizona around 7pm that evening after stopping for pizza for dinner. The kids not at all exhausted from the long car ride wasted no time at all donning their swim suits and taking advantage of the hotel's pool. Then with a little help we finally got them all to sleep.
We woke up bright and early the next morning (Tuesday). And enjoyed the hotel's free breakfast before heading out for the Grand Canyon which was an hour away. We headed out and immediately got turned around and lost. So we figured out we were going the wrong way and were circling around when we noticed sirens behind us. Yep we got pulled over. Turns out while we were getting lost we went through a school zone, going a whopping 22 miles per hour instead of 15. But our friendly police officer took pity on us. Not only were we lost but we were from his favorite state and from a small town no less. Seems he used to live in rural Nevada and "had a soft spot in his heart for us." So after making sure we had no warrants or anything he sent us on our way with directions as to how to actually get there.
An hour later we pulled into the Grand Canyon National Park, paid $25 to get in the gates and ventured out. Not before an angry call to Bank of America for freezing our friends bank account, which they were unwilling to unfreeze until midnight leaving her essentially stranded. She got her husband to go into the bank at which point they agreed to release a whole $100 for her to use for the rest of the day. Don't ask me what she would have had to do if she had tried to buy gas, pay for a hotel, eat?????
Anyways, we went straight for the nearest rim. And here is our first look at the Grand Canyon.
From there it was pretty much the same all day. We hiked along the rim of the canyon looking at its impressive views from all sorts of angles. And feeling a bit nervous when you get near the edge which can have sheer drops of hundreds of feet. YIKES!! We wanted to see the viewing tower but got confused somewhere along the way and didn't get there til right after it closed. But we walked around and watched the sun set over the canyon which was beautiful and enjoyed the night scene as well. There was a full moon which made it fun. (David and Tommy pretended they were wolves cause of the full moon. Not werewolves, just wolves. They told Nathan he was a frog...hehe brothers.)
The kids all together including our friends.
David, Nathan, Tommy, and Nate.
This was just an impressive view of how big the canyon really is. See that little brown streak in the middle. That's the Colorado river. It looks small from this far away but they say its 400 plus feet across in those spots. You could also see some white spots on the river which from our view looked like mild rapids. Yeah, they were class 8 rapids. Its just amazing when you really think about it and see it in real life. Its HUGE.
So all in all we had a great trip and I already have tentative plans to hike rim to rim with a friend (and hopefully more) next fall. Wooohooo, I'm already excited.
