GRANDest of days!

That's right folks - we finally made it to the GRAND CANYON :) I told Aaron I feel like there are three parks that really define "National Park Service" for me - Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon. So now we have made it to one of the three!

The journey started at 5:30am when our alarms went off and we sprang into motion to load up the camelbacks, lunches, and other things into the car and head off by 6:00am. Early mornings!

The Grand Canyon is around 2hr 30min from where we are staying in Page AZ, and we were going to be going out there and back in one day. So yea, a lot of driving! But I tell you what, the drive could not have been any more amazing or beautiful.....check out these shots from the drive:

I kept wanting to burst out into "Wide Open Spaces" song. The land is so vast and open! And at one point on the drive, around Marble Canyon, you are literally surrounded completely by red rock and red sand. You feel like you are on another planet!

So although the drive per GPS is 2.5hrs, it was significantly reduced for a few reasons...

#1. Jenni put the pedal to the medal in leading us there :) Girlfriend was definitely in a hurry and I, driving and following her, was a little surprised! ha. Turns out, when we got there, she had wanted to make the 8:30am ranger talk. Ahh, makes sense :) And it did save us time! Did you see the pictures up above - wide open spaces? It is not difficult to go a little over :)

#2. The drives out here just do not seem as long as they do out East. I am not sure if it is because the scenery is so new and stunning to me, or if it is because you can see for miles which way you are going and so it makes the time go faster to know and see the "endgame" of your driving.

#3. Grace and Brie were very happily playing with kindles in the backseat.

Either way, we made it to Grand Canyon (the North Rim) right around 8:00am!

The weather was A-Mazing the entire time we were there. When we got there, it was low 60's with a breeze, and when we left it was low 70's with a breeze. Can you ask for anything better?? Although, it was interesting, at one point on the drive there when we were getting pretty close to the park, Brie commented that it felt cold. I looked down at the car thermometer, it read 39 degrees! What?!? It soon started warming back up, but so weird. The temperatures down here can fluctuate in literally 5-10 minutes from hot to freezing.

After collecting our junior ranger booklets (which were the nicest we had gotten yet!), we headed straight to the ranger talk - a 45 minute Nature Walk. The kids were able to pay attention for oh, maybe about 15 minutes. The ranger was going quite in depth about the canyon though, so the kids were also able to work some on their booklets. Us adults enjoyed learning a few new things ourselves while still enjoying the fabulous dry fall-like weather :)

By the end of the talk, we were definitely itching to go explore and see the picturesque views. After quickly grabbing our kindles and lunch (we were starving!), we headed off. Soon, the views were apparent as was the fact that this "walk" was not for the faint of heart about heights. I was definitely feeling reluctant up there - the heights are so dizzying!! Many times my stomach went up to my neck. But it was gorgeous.

(yes, don't mind my goofball socks/hiking boots combo! it's comfy!)

I also realize I have neglected to give a ton of credit for all this hiking to the Camelback! What an amazing invention. The kids each have their own that are identical except for the pattern/colors. They have been a lifesaver - the kids can each carry their own water and take sips when they want! hallelujah :) I highly recommend these if you ever want to take kids on a hike longer than a mile or so.

We ended up eating our lunches at 10am because we were absolutely starving. Arizona is famously not on daylight savings time, which meant when we crossed over yesterday, we gained an hour, which has thrown us off a little. So technically we were eating at what had been 11am in Utah :)

We spent the rest of our time lazily walking around and taking in the views and continuing to soak up the weather. It was so lovely! I am glad we had time to relax at this park. I think we all enjoyed it. 

One thing that all of us were a bit surprised about though was how many trees there were at the grand canyon! I think it was just because we were at the North Rim. I think all of us had an image in our head that the Grand Canyon is all desert. Which, it may be at the South Rim? But we elected to go to the North Rim instead because less crowds on a Saturday = yes. And it was absolutely breathtaking!

(chilling on comfy couches inside the historic lodge)

(Brie and Grace having so many laughs!)

After a stop in the gift shop where nearly everyone bought something (myself - an ornament! yay!), the kids went and got their junior ranger badges! That makes 5 badges + one pin! 

The drive back was just as gorgeous as the drive there. We got back to our house around 3:00pm and everyone was quite exhausted! (Except the kids, who immediately rebounded with energy to run around playing make-believe!) So we re-adjusted the itinerary. I had originally planned for us to go swim in the lake 3 miles away, and then go for a late dinner and Navajo-entertainment show in Page. Well, everyone was already hungry and was not feeling a late show and early-ish morning tomorrow. So change of plans! We decided to pick up fast food dinner and go watch the sunset at Horseshoe Bend.

This was great because I had really wanted to make it out to Horseshoe Bend, and had originally planned to see it at sunrise this morning. However, everyone was pretty wiped out so last night I suggested we nix the sunrise at Horseshoe Bend. And let me tell you - sunset at Horseshoe Bend could not have been more fun! Plenty of room for the kids to run around away from the cliff edge. And amply opportunity to take in a gorgeous sunset combined with a sweet and soft breeze in the evening heat. 

I was shocked at how many people were there!! The parking lot was packed and the trail constantly had droves of people walking on it. How does everyone know about this place?!? I thought it was a rare instagram place, but I guess not! It was also crazy how many people around us were from outside the U.S.A. How did they hear about it?!? haha, it does not matter, it was kinda more fun being a part of a large crowd there all enjoying the sites. But it was still surprising!

It was also a little nerve-racking watching some people take photos at the very edge. gahh! I wanted to pull them back in and say "are you crazy?!?!" But I resisted. Just google "horseshoe bend instagram" to see some of the death-defying photos! Nooo thank you. I like our photos just fine and we are all still alive!

One final note I have not yet commented on I don't think - how DRY the air is out here! It is for good and bad. 

Good: Shoes (including thick-fabric keens and tennis shoes) that are soaking wet....they dry within 3-4 hours of being outside. Back home in Georgia it would take 2-3 days!

Bad: Skin and lips that are constantly dried out, sometimes to the extreme. Poor Brie's face is a patchwork of red splotches where her face is completely dried out. I feel like a bad mom that I did not start putting moisturizer on her as a preventative measure the first day! Now she cries when it gets very dried out. Thankfully, my sister-in-law Jenni has some wonderful creme that helps relieve Brie's pain. I lathered it on her tonight, so we will see how she is in the morning. The rest of us are also extremely dry too though, and always lathering lotion and tons of chapstick. We are definitely not used to it!

Okay, I am exhausted, time for bed. Night!