Our trip to the Grand Canyon

Long posts to follow...you heard that right, posts...because when you go to the Grand Canyon with 3 kids and a dog, there's a lot to share.

A post to follow will share more of why we took this crazy trip.  The short story for now is Ben's command told him to take a week off before the guy he's replacing moves and Ben said, "Hey, do you want to go the Grand Canyon?" and you never, ever say no to someone offering to take you to the Grand Canyon.  He booked a hotel and that was it.  We really didn't plan much, but tried to view it as just an opportunity to see it and plan to go back to really explore.

Tuesday, I picked up a few books on the Canyon at the library and that was my school prep for the trip.

Wednesday morning, while Ben cooked breakfast, I threw some pj's, a change of clothes, some movies, snacks, dog food, coats and a giant box of waters in the car and we were ready to go.  I realized that morning how the cross country move changed me.  I was excited that morning and packing us all up seemed like no big deal.  Moving made me excited to see new things and made me comfortable with traveling/packing, which I am so thankful for because a year ago I would have been stressed that morning.

We hit the road, with the destination of Flagstaff.  Our only plan for the day was to go star gazing at night (big thing in Flagstaff).

I was spoiled this trip because I didn't drive for one minute and we were all together!  

The drive was interesting; every part of Arizona is different and it's so fascinating to watch it change as you drive. 

We were 45 min away from Flagstaff when we saw a sign for Sedona.  We started talking about how we were supposed to stay there on our way through Arizona while moving and we could see how beautiful it was from the highway.  We made a literally split second decision and exited for Sedona.  No plan, but we had to see it and it was the best spontaneous decision we ever made.

We pulled over at a hiking spot, found a short trail on the map and started walking.  

The most fun thing I have ever done.  Hands down.

I fell in love with Sedona that day.  It was so beautiful and had a really fun downtown area.  We found dinner at an outside cafe that was dog friendly.  Actually that was another one of my favorite things about this trip; every meal we ate outside so Maya could be with us, but I thought it was really fun.

We took the scenic route up to Flagstaff (also a great decision) and stopped at Dairy Queen for a little treat.  Alison exclaimed, "I've always wanted to go to Dairy Queen!!!"...can it be true that she's never been to Dairy Queen?

Colin fell asleep on the way to Flagstaff and star gazing never happened.  I guess that will have to go on our "next trip" list.

Thursday morning, we drove up to the Canyon!

At the visitors center

Walking up to the South Rim

Seeing the Canyon for the first time

Ben and his mini-me

There really are no words to describe seeing the canyon and pictures don't do it justice.  Your brain almost cannot compute what you are seeing, so you have to just stand there and try to soak it up.

We hiked a little on the path around the South Rim.  It was slightly nerve wracking with the boys and no railing along the path.  The rules were: no running or goofing around and the closer they were to the right side, the happier I was.

This was the closest I let them get to the ridge.

We stopped for a snack and Colin turned into a ninja.

  

 

On our way back, we ran into a couple also walking a dog.  We had seen lots of people with dogs there and each time, Maya would hide behind us.  Something about this dog pushed a funny button in Maya and she started acting like we've never seen her.  She ran up and started licking the dog and trying to play with her, as if they had been best friends forever.  This couple was so sweet and gave Maya some treats while we talked for a bit.  

Meeting Maddie the Pitbull

Then the craziest thing happened...people started stopping to look/pet/take pictures of the dogs!  Um, we were standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon and they are taking pictures of our dog! 

 

  On the way out of the park, we saw some elk right by the road.

 

We stopped in Phoenix that evening to try In-N-Out burger.  Everyone around here raves about this place, so we thought we should eat there just so we know what their talking about and can say "yes, we've been there".  It was nothing to rave about, but we checked it off the list.

On the way home, we added at least 3 more items to our trip list.  This short trip was completely worth it and I'm so glad we were spontaneous, but in the future, we'd like to take an extended trip back to Sedona and the canyon and camp.  Okay, camping may be a few years down the line, but at least go back for more time and do more hikes.  Ben and I would LOVE to hike down to the bottom of the Canyon, so that is also a future bucket list item.