Grand Canyon

I thought it would be mighty embarrassing for our children when they say we are from AZ and then when they are asked, 'How is the Grand Canyon?' they just shrug their shoulders. So, we piled up and headed north. It was a beautiful day: 60 deg and sunny.

The boys got booklets and work to do. They wanted to become Jr Rangers and they had to do different activities throughout the day like find rocks or do Canyon Bingo finding plants and animals. It was worth it because otherwise Ryan would have lost complete interest and today he went to preschool wearing his Jr Ranger badge and said, 'The Grand Canyon was the coolest trip.'

Bruce, his sister Robin and brother in law Craig, Julianne and us at the South Rim, Mather Point.

Ryan grabbed this tree and started shaking it. When we yelled at him he said, 'It isn't even real.' Oh boy, he has been to too many theme parks.

Ryan was scared when I gave him the pre canyon trip talk. I responded that that was good, very good. And he stayed relatively cautious except when we stopped too long.

The boys: front.

The boys: Back.

I brought my binoculars and Ryan loved them. I saw some little swallows darting around. But we didn't see any condors, which would have been awesome.

The happy couple.

Now, of course we had to have puke somewhere along the way and Ryan provided that 30 min this side of Flagstaff on the way up. I'm thinking car sickness from watching a movie and eating just the charms out of his not so Lucky charms. He has been banned from said cereal until the age of 6.

We were home at about 9:30pm. A perfect day trip. Now, I would like to go back and hike down to the bottom, stay overnight and come back up. Ah, nature and birds and fresh smells. I have always wanted to go on a raft trip and I think 2 days rafting through the canyon would also be a fine thing to do.