Well, I have discovered that it is hard to be on vacation and document that vacation at the same time (particularly with a really crappy internet signal!), so I have gotten a little bit behind here. I will try to post about yesterday’s trip to the Grand Canyon later today, but for now will cover our activities on Sunday & Monday.
We settled into the condo on Saturday night, and made a pasta dinner. It is pretty comfortable here. We have 2 bedrooms, one with a king-sized bed, and the other with 2 twin beds. Tom & I took the king (of course!), and we set up the other bedrooms as a girl’s dorm with Ally on the Aero bed we brought from home. Will ended up on the fold-out couch in the living room as usual. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the only boy! We have a full kitchen, a gas fireplace and two balconies with views of Mt. Elgin.
A couple of pictures:
As I said in my last posting, our plans on Sunday were to check out the Flagstaff Renaissance Fair and maybe go for a hike in Walnut Canyon. Well, none of that happened! We took it easy in the morning and let the kids sleep or watch TV. That is, most of the family took it easy - I went on a four mile run! At about 11:30 we went in search of the Renaissance Fair and we never found it. We wandered around this park area in the car for about 25 minutes before giving up. I think it was actually cancelled but was still listed in the local guide books. Maybe it should have been a tip-off when the domain registration for their website was expired!
Anyway, we decided to head into Flagstaff for lunch and shopping. We had a great time, and ate a wonderful lunch at San Felipe’s Cantina (they had terrific fish tacos). Everyone bought something, and I also got some games for the kids to play at the condo.
When we got back we went up to the pool/activity center for a while. They have Starbucks coffee there, as well as a pretty nice pool and some billiards tables and other stuff. It’s a nice setup. We swam, and then rented a movie for the evening. We ordered pizza (it was only OK), watched Nancy Drew and went to bed.
There is so much to do up here that I know we will only see a part of it. I really wanted to make sure that we drove the Loop Road north of Flagstaff that goes by the Sunset Crater volcano and the ancient pueblos of the Wutpatki National Monument. So that was the plan for Monday.
After another slow start (but no running for me) we picked up food for a picnic at the local Safeway and drove up to the Loop Road. It is a National Park, so we paid our entrance fee and drove up to the visitor center where we had our picnic. Then we proceeded to the crater area. You could glimpse the crater from the road:You can no longer climb Sunset Crater because hikers were damaging the soft cinder slopes. We debated climbing up an adjacent hill, but decided just to do the one-mile hike below the crater that gives you a taste of the lava field, as well as good views of the crater. Sunset Crater was formed about 1000 years ago in a volcanic blast, and last erupted approximately 800 years ago. What is amazing is how the cinders and the lava flow still dominate the landscape for miles around the crater. When you walk below the crater, the ground is soft with cinders.
Here are the kids in front of the crater:
Finally, here are the San Francisco peaks from this area. You can see the snow on the top of Humphrey’s peak! This was once one giant volcano, until a blast blew out the center and several separate peaks were formed. You can almost picture that here:
After drinking a bucketful of water at the water fountain, we moved onto the next site. At on overlook we got another beautiful view of Sunset Crater:
You could also see the Painted Desert (which is beautiful in person, but doesn’t come out well in photos on my camera), and some of the other craters of the San Francisco volcanic field:
Our final stop on this loop was the Wupatki National Monument. At about 1100AD ancestors of the Hopi people built this beautiful pueblo complex. It includes a multistory pueblo, , a ball court and a really cool “blow hole.” They have been excavated and stabilized by the park service. We toured the complex, but the younger girls were getting a little tired and hot, so we didn’t stay as long as I would have liked.
The blow hole is connected to an underground series of passages. It blows air out when the outer air pressure is low, and sucks air in when the outer air pressure is high. It was blowing air out when we visited, and the air was delightfully cool. It actually felt like air conditioning!
We spent some time in the visitors center, which was very interesting and worth seeing. They had some very interesting information about what it takes to live in this harsh environment. It also included some stories about the Native Americans who were booted off this land when it was made a National Park, which is very unusual in my experience. Usually the National Park service is not particularly self-critical! Anyway, at this point, we were all tired, and so we headed back to the condo.
After resting for a bit, we went out to dinner in Flagstaff at the Beaver Street Brewery, and had some awesome burgers! Also, I had some of their excellent beer – I was tempted to get some of their “beer-to-go” but thought better of it!
Next: our visit to the Grand Canyon!
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