The Grand Canyon!

This last weekend Erik and I met his parents up in Sedona, AZ (about 115 miles North of Phoenix) where they were staying the past week at a resort. The whole area is completely different from Phoenix. The elevation is about 3000ft higher, so it was felt more like winter there! The area is so amazing. Sedona is quite the resort town, with little shops and hotels along the strip. Beautiful Red Rock was all around us. They are all completely different, with names very fitting, such as "Coffee Pot", "Bell Rock", and even "Linus and Lucy" and "Snoopy and Woodstock".

Erik's parents kept good care of us while we were there and spoiled us with 4 big meals that Sedona Restaurants had to offer. I highly recommend ordering the belgian waffle at The Coffee Pot Restaurant. They also drove us all around the area to show us different sites, and tell us about the dino tracks, hiking trails, and "vortexes" (nothing like the Oregon Vortex I must add!) Sedona also still had leaves on most of the deciduous trees, so this left for a very nice view of colors in the valley.


Well the biggest reason to go North, was to of course see the Grand Canyon! The drive to the canyon was pretty cool, because of how different the land seems from just 200 miles to the South, in Phoenix. The Flagstaff area reminds me a lot of Central Oregon, with a lot of Ponderosa Pine and Juniper, as opposed to nothing but cactus and sagebrush in Phoenix. There of course is a lot more wildlife there, with mule deer, elk, and even black bear. And as a side-note, driving along the interstate we almost hit a tumbleweed the size of our car...

When we reached the Grand Canyon, it was very cloudy. But it cleared away fast because the winds were blowing between 20 and 40mph, with gusts up to 60mph! There were moments we were almost blown over. So with the cold winter weather, adding wind chill, the temperature was around freezing. So you can see why we are all bundled up ;) (P.S. the low that night was 1 degree, and it snowed 3 inches.)




It was jaw-dropping. It was my first time ever going to the Grand Canyon, and it was much more amazing than I imagined. I thought we were going to go and do the Chevy Chase bit in "Vacation" and walk up to the edge, stand there for 2 seconds and go "ok, I've seen it", but it was much more amazing than that. We stopped at every lookout we could, since every view was completely different. It was so picturesque, and almost unreal. I felt like I was staring into a large photograph. Erik and I will definitely be going back in the spring, and do some hiking, and for SURE some mule-back riding down to the bottom!