How Grand

We've officially wrapped up our summer by taking one last trip to the Grand Canyon!

We packed all our camping gear up in my parents Subaru, (its got a lot more room than our little Camry) and took the 10 hour drive to northern AZ on Thursday morning Sept 3. We arrived at the campground at about 8:30 at night in the pouring rain. We seriously considered sleeping in the car that night (the back seat folds down) because it was pitch black and looked almost impossible to set a tent up in those conditions. We were starving, so to kill some time we went and got dinner, and by the time we were done it had stopped raining. So Mike set up the tent and we slept cozily. I think he was relieved because with his long legs, the back of the Subaru wasn't looking so comfortable.

Yes, we took Emmett with us. He was a good sport. The hardest thing about taking him was he wanted to crawl and move on his own everywhere we went. He's very mobile now and mommy not letting him crawl on the dirt, rocks, or pavement was a serious heart breaker for him. I listened to more whining from that kid in one weekend than I have in his entire 10 months of life! And like in any road trip, he was buckled up in his car seat for a lot of the time as well, another thing he despises. But other than that, he was a happy little camper and was fun to have around.

We had 2 full days to spend at the park, and 3 nights. The Park provides free shuttle services to everything, visitors centers, lodges, cafe, market, campground, viewpoints, hiking trails etc. And since the campground we were staying at was located inside the park we didn't have to drive our car once we were there. The days were a beautiful 80 degree's and blue skies, but at night around 8 o'clock, it thundered/lighting. Typical desert weather I think. Here's a picture of Emmett on the shuttle. One of the few times he was contently sitting still.

And this is what we would do to keep him happy when he was wiggly:

Some of the wildlife we saw:

I think the most exciting was this little horny toad.

And some others that we chose not to take pictures of were ravens, which were everywhere and loved to eat our leftovers that fell on the ground (Emmett loved them and squealed with delight everytime he saw one). And a black widow spider that decided to take up residence in the womens bathroom at our campground. It first said hello to me as I was drying my hands under the automatic dryer and everytime after that she was there sitting in her web above the mirror. If you know me, you'll know I hate hate hate all things creepy and crawly so lets just say I only went in that bathroom when I was on the brink of losing it all.

Since it was our anniversary while we were there we put Emmett to bed early that night and enjoyed ourselves some fajitas and a crackling fire. Who needs candlelight and steak and lobster?

The Grand Canyon is AMAZING. Its considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world and we couldn't believe how many people travel to see it from all over. We felt like the minority being Americans. It made me glad that we took advantage of seeing something so spectacular when it can be considered right in our "backyard" compared to someone coming from England or India.

Pictures never can do something like this justice. But here's some to enjoy anyways!

Sunrise

Sunset facing away from the sun.

Storm in the distance

If you look closely you can see a trail with a million switchbacks. We took this picture at an above viewpoint/cliff. Its called the Bright Angel Trail and is 12 miles long. We didn't take it, although they say its one of the most popular ones there.

One thing that surprised me was there's hardly any guardrails or safety fences anywhere. As you can see, the cliff pretty much just drops off behind us.

We had a wonderful trip, but what vacation goes without its hiccups? Ours began about 15 miles down the road on our way home. Mike was driving and noticed the power steering quit working and the battery light came on in the car. He thought it was odd, and not a good sign thinking the alternator was going out. This is when I started to moan "Ohhhhh nooooooo" and began trying to find my happy place. We were in the middle of nowhere Arizona, no cell service, no town for 20 miles, and a car that was not driving well. Luckily the road to the nearest town was mostly downhill so to preserve as much battery power as we could he put the car in neutral and coasted most of the way there. We made it safely. Bad news was the town we were in, Cameron, had no car repair shop, and no stores that sold any car parts. In fact, that tiny town had probably a population of 50. And it was a Sunday on a holiday weekend. We were informed our best bet was in Flagstaff, AZ about 60 miles away in the opposite direction of home.

Here's a picture of Mike holding up, what we discovered was a shredded serpentine belt. I still can't believe with all the stress going on in my brain at the moment I managed to pull out the camera and take a picture.

We called a tow truck and he took us the 60 miles to Flagstaff. We planned on stopping at a Subaru dealership to get it fixed in the morning (on Monday) but found out they were closed until Tuesday due to the holiday. I was having awful images of being stuck in a hotel room for 2 days straight without a car until Tuesday, when all I wanted to do was go home. (Keep in mind we'd been camping for 3 days and had no clean clothes left. And although we got to shower once, I really wanted my own bed and bath)! Well, we decided to call Napa Auto Parts and see if they had a belt, which they did. And thankfully they were actually open on a Sunday. We headed over there in the tow truck, and caught them 15 minutes before closing. This is a picture of the nice employee who stayed 10 minutes longer after they closed to help us out.

It was fixed! We hopped in the car and drove to Kanab, UT and hoteled it for the night. The next morning we were driving along the freeway and came to Richfield, UT (which is in central UT), pretty soon we started seeing signs for Grand Junction, Colorado and noticed we were driving east instead of north. Come to find out, Mike, (who was driving) was talking on the phone and didn't realize the road split in two and he went the wrong way. We had been driving in the wrong direction for 20 miles before we realized it! At this point all we could do was laugh at our luck. Rolling into our driveway that afternoon was a pleasant sight to see! I have the darnedest luck with road trips, this included my 3rd time in a tow truck, and I'm sure not the last. I keep saying someday when we can afford it I'm owning the most reliable vehicle in existence so I don't have to keep doing this!