Driving out

I know! More pictures of this! I will admit they all kind of do look alike here, but in real life every view is different - and I can remember in my mind's eye the differences when I look at these. Feel free to skim if your mind's eye cannot remember. But note you can see the Colorado River in some of these.













































A picture of me taking a picture.














I missed this on the way in.

Another evening at the Canyon

I am almost to the end of this catch up. My apologies if you are getting bored. I forgot to bring my travel journal (yes, I keep a travel journal - ever since I got married and actually started traveling to cool places) and so this is my way of keeping up with everything.

Still coming around the mountain

She was so pleased to get her picture made with the Conductor.

Comin' around the mountain

We took a ride on the Grand Canyon Railroad while we were there. Olivia loved it.











































While this isn't a particularly great picture - it is indicative of the ride with Joseph. He has become quite active and quite vocal. We had to strap him into his booster seat for the ride.

In the Evening

Long, hard, hot days make for tired hungry children. To entertain I used one of my mom's old tricks. Put a napkin on your face and pretend to sneeze. It blows up in the air and makes the children laugh - it worked for me...it worked for our children - thankfully.















No doubt we are now on someone else's blog somewhere in Asia. These sweet women could not get enough of Joseph. He eventually started humming this "they are starting to frighten me" hum.















Our accommodations - it's not quite White Pine (TN), but it served us well.















The Rangers - Olivia was quite excited (as you can see).

Hard work - big snack

Even though she rode most of the way, she did walk some and worked up a bit of a sweat. It was so sweet getting her back into the hotel, taking off all her dusty clothes and putting on a nice, clean, soft, t-shirt. We all enjoyed a little snack.

Sorry, no pictures of the hike up. Just let it be enough to know that we made it back up.

On the way down (still smiles)

This is our hike down into the Canyon. Please just turn your head for this first one - I forgot to turn it before I posted it and I am trying to catch up on all these posts so I can start updating you on all the fun current day activities. (Also, too lazy to go back and fix it.) This was one of two tunnels carved out for the trail.














A few arsses.

Flora

The Birds

We stopped for a snack on our first hike and were visited by an ENORMOUS raven. It was really rather freaky - we were cramming food in our mouths and throwing Olivia back in the pack. I'm not exaggerating - he got really close and was screaming at us.

Hopi Point

We rode a bus up to Hopi Point and then hiked the two miles back to the car at the Maswick Lodge. It was so hot and dry and I was really nervous about the kids' skin just frying - but the sunscreen did its job and Joseph finally left his hat alone and kept it on.




























I thought this looked like a dog.






























The switch back trail you see down there is the Bright Angel trail. It takes you 9 miles down to the Colorado River - you stop half way to camp, so it is a four day hike up and back. They recommend you don't go all the way to the botton and back in one day, though people do it. We did three miles on it - that was enough with kids in packs.

Grand Canyon day 1

We took a brief walk around Yavapi Point when we first arrived. It was pretty hazy but still amazing. A little unnerving to have your kids that close to the edge of something so massive.