We Made It

We rolled into the Grand Canyon just after sundown on Sunday night, just in time to catch a quick glimpse before we found the place we were staying.  

The Lodge was actually nicer than I anticipated, especially from looking at the outside!  The Fairmont had two doubles, but the Lodge had two queens, which, if you have 3 girls sharing one bed, is a nice difference.    We tried the girls going horizonal on the bed this time - aside from Lauren's falling out a few times, I would say it was successful. 

All the papers from the lodge and a few things I had looked at before we left talked about how bad the traffic and parking was, which adequately freaked me out enough to haul everyone out pretty early to make sure we got to see the sites we wanted before we had to take off for home.  When we got to the first viewpoint, we were one of maybe 5 cars - I guess we beat the rush.  Actually, at the ranger talk we went to, he said there were about 60 people there the day before (and there were only about 15 on Monday) so maybe our timing worked well.   It was a pretty fun ranger talk where he showed us how to find fossils in the rocks, and considering my kids are into rocks, it worked well.

He also inspired us to hike down the Bright Angel trail at least a little ways so we could see some petroglyphs that are along the trail, plus according to him a very small percentage of visitors ever go below the rim, so of course then we had to do it. 

The only problem with the ease of parking, etc. was that we had told the girls that we would be riding a shuttle and Lauren was really disappointed to learn that just driving our car would be easier and faster.  So Robie took her on a ride on the shuttle - we didn't want anyone to leave the Grand Canyon disappointed on this trip (well, until we hit the gift shop of course)!

We hit a few more viewpoints on the way out.  I think if you just go look down at the canyon it could be kind of boring, but we enjoyed looking at the visitor's centers and listening to the ranger talk so I would definitely go back and stay a little longer - maybe ride the bikes around through the forest or along the rim (on the part that has a big wall). I am kind of afraid of heights, ok, I'm really afraid of heights, so this viewpoint was not great, I just kept saying things that are embarrassing, like, "guys, why are you doing that, scoot into the middle a little more; and why do you have to lean onto the railing - be careful.. "  I didn't go down there.

this is what I refer to as the money shot (it's as good as its going to get)

  not on the list of things we enjoyed woudl be sitting in traffic outside of Phoenix.  And when I say "outside" of Phoenix I mean 78 miles before we got there we were already going anywhere between 0 and 20 miles an hour.    Our directions on the way there were sketchy because we are still old school and don't have internet on our phones or anything, so I printed out directions (seems responsible, doesn't it?)  Too bad I was in such a hurry, so I didn't notice that the printer cartridge was almost out, so it only printed every 3rd line.. we almost made it anyway (it's not really that complicated) with one last minute call to my sister just to make sure we were going the right direction.   But on the way back, once we hit traffic we realized there must be a different way to go, or we wouldn't be home until 4 in the morning.  So we called Robie's dad and he gave us the rundown  (involving 6 different freeways and lots of open land.)  That was such a good decision.  It was a pretty scenic drive, and besides the hour we lost in traffic wouldn't have been such a bad drive home (about 10 1/2 total).  We went through mountain/forest towns, down the sides of the mountains and straight down to the desert. 

The kids thought it was shocking - not because of the scenery, but because we were able to drive 4 1/2 hours without finding any fast food (can you believe it?)  I did have Peanut Butter and Jelly and bread in the car, which I thought was fortuitous, since I hadn't eaten lunch, but the kids held out until we got closer to civilization. 

Robie and I both vacillated so much on whether to go or not - in one day (Friday) the trip was off/back on approximately 10 times, thank goodness we decided to go - so worth it!