You all will be amazed, but we did not stay at a Walmart last night! I know you are all amazed! We slept at Meteor Crater RV Park near Winslow, Arizona. Meteor Crater is a huge hole in the ground where a 54 yard meteor hit the earth at 45,000 mph (that's about how fast Dave takes the turns when I'm trying to make lunch). This created a hole 4,000 ft. around, and 570 ft. deep. OK I must be honest, we were to cheap to actually see the hole, but I thought I would fill you in on the info. We left the campsite and headed to Winslow, Arizona for the sole purpose of standing on the corner. For all of you that are too young to remember the song "Take it Easy" by the Eagles, go to Limewire and download it or ask your parents if you can borrow their 8 track. Anyway, we then drove to the Hopi Indian Reservation. The reservation has three Mesas, Mesa 1, Mesa 2 and Mesa 3 (I'm sure that took them a long time to name). This was a cultural treat to see how the Hopi live today. I have to say, on first glance I would never want to live there. It is very dry and hot and homes look as if they are falling apart. You are not permitted to take pictures anywhere on the reservation, so of course I had to sneak one (I would never be allowed a Jr. Ranger badge). Anyway, at third Mesa we decided to stop into their town grocery store so we could see what it was like. Besides being verrrrry small (a little bigger than 7-11) the food was very similar (it seemed like they had some Mexican brands of some foods). The boys got a weird "pump your own" Slurpee (I think it was called slush puppy. We than went to another town on third Mesa called Oraibi, which is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in Northern America. They still refuse to have water or electricity. The whole city is built on top of the the still partially standing ruins of their ancestors. We bo
ught a Kachina doll from some very friendly Hopi women. Each doll has a history and the women told us about each doll that they or their family had painted. We bought the Grandmother Kachina, she supposedly, watches over the family and is given to a child at birth. We then walked around the ruins, in the rubble you could find a ton of old pottery pieces, it was really cool and I very much wanted to take a piece home with me, but you all will all be amazed to know that I followed the rules and left the pieces were their ancient ancestors left them (See I have Jr. Ranger potential).
We then drove through to the Hopi reservation and the Navajo reservation on our way to Canyon de Chelly. If you ever have the opportunity to see this Canyon... "jump on it," because it is awesome. Basically it is a 131 square mile Canyon in which the Navajo and Anci
ent Pueblo people live. The cool thing about it is the Navajo didn't live on the canyon floor they made their home in the middle of the cliff (not the top of the cliff,
see pics in my pic post above). It was crazy to see their ruins in the rock. I figured they must have felt both safe and unsafe at the same time. There is no way anyone could get to them without them seeing them and shooting them with an arrow
, but they are also in
danger every time they stepped out the door.
(could you imagine if you had kids! You would never sleep, or if you were a sleep walker...you would be a goner). Well the canyon
itself is gorgeous from the rim, but they have this trail that takes you over the ledge and zig-zags you to the bottom. It was such a great decent to the bottom. You go through blasted out tunnels and the view is incredible. When you get to the bottom the view only gets better. I love to take pictures and this place is a photographers dream. At the bottom there is a
ruin called the
White House.
This is a great example of a Navajo pueblo (home) in the cliff wall. You can also see petroglyphs around the house. It is so cool knowing that people of another generation left their mark on the rock. I have so many pics it's hard to decide which ones to post (look at my pic post above). The walk back up was much harder than the walk down, but it is so well worth it.
It was dinner time when we got back to the RV. We headed to A&W and hit the road to Albuquerque. I'm writing this on the 4 hour drive. Thanks again for the comments!! We love to read them!! Please forward our blog to anyone else that might want to read it!! Miss you all!
al monument. Our state park pass has really come in handy. Sunset Volcano last er
upted over 900 years ago, but the hardened lava flow still drapes itself down the mountain side like it just erupted. It is quite a site to see. It looks like a black, solid rock river below a 1,000 foot high Cinder Cone Volcano. We took a mile hike around the lava flow and the kids filled out their Jr. ranger booklets. They really are learning a lot from the J
r. Ranger activities. They now have 3 Jr. Ranger badges and patches. After they complete each program the ranger quizzes them and than swears them in. We left the volcano and drove 12 miles to the Wupatki ruins. The puebloan people built these masonry pueblos in the early 1100s. They are a great example of how early americans lived, worked and played. The kids were most impressed by a nat
ural blow hole. This small 1' round opening in the ground shot out a cool wind 21 mph. The wind was so compact that the kids could drop their shoe and it would float up in the air. It is amazing how a small hole of wind can entertain 3 boys for hours. The interesting thing about this blow hole is that half the time it su
cks in the air and the other half it blows it out. Pretty cool! We are now parked at a campground in front of Meteor Crater outside of Winslow, Arizona (and yes when we get to Winslow we will stand on the corner "Standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona..Eagles). We miss you all! Thanks for the comments, we really do love getting them! The boys can't wait to see who posts.
. Tanner said he had seen pictures of the Canyon but had no idea it was so huge and impressive. They all absolutely loved it. It really does remind you of how amazing God is. He loves us so much that he created a place like the Grand Canyon for us to enjoy. He doesn't do anything half way! The first thing we did was pull up in front of the visitors center (I love visitor centers!) and we took a peek over the edge. The first look is the most incredible because you forget how spectacular it is. Not to mention, if you have never seen it before like our boys. Did you know the Grand Canyon is 18 miles wide, 5,000 ft deep and 227 miles long! (Had to throw those facts in because they are so impressive). After our peek, and my panicking because a lot of the canyon edge
s do not have rails and Peyton doesn't seem to have any fear of heights (we did learn that there have been around 600 accidental deaths at the canyon, most due to careless photographers who think the best picture is taken while hanging over the edge). We headed to the visitor center to get info and join the Jr. Rangers Program. If you didn't know, almost all the National Parks have a Jr. Rangers Program where kids do lessons in a workbook and attend a ranger class in exchange for a certificate, a badge, a patch and then officially sworn in as a Ranger. Then we headed out on the tram to the first look-out point. We truly enjoyed the view, but the kid
s were more impressed by the squirrels. The boys had a goldfish snack and the squirrels decided to share it with them (first Jr. Ranger rule...don't feed the animals). I ha
ve more pics I
will post with a squirrel sitting on Peytons
shoulder. We then went back on the bus and saw the canyon from many different angles (I think the Hopi point view was the best). We had a great ice cream lunch and then went to a ranger talk on Condors. Did you know that there are only 300 condors in the world and only 147 of them are living in the wild?! All of them are tagged and protected. The California Condor is the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere. It's wing span is 9 ft!!! I got some great pictures of the condors flying overhead and perched on a rock. Oh, I forgot to mention that one of my friends from Get Motivated (Darren and family) were at the canyon at the same time. We met up with them to see the sunset over the canyon. What a great ending to the perfect day!
e top 10 scenic drives in the US) there was a river on one side with a backdrop of Red Rock formations on the other. There was also many beautiful green trees and plants which you do not see much of in Arizona. The second reason the drive was adventurous was all the turns and steep cliffs. We were in a huge RV with little RV experience (luckily Dave was driving or we would have for sure been dead). I have to say it was a little scary! (Pop, Scott and Bob you would have hated it). We ended up in Flagstaff and decided to call it a night at...where else? Walmart.
