Our Move to Corpus (in pictures) Part 5...Days 12-14

Have I mentioned that Utah is beautiful? Unfortunately, we had to leave Utah on the 12th day of our trip, but we stopped at Bryce Canyon first. Personally, I think Red Canyon was prettier than Bryce Canyon, but Bryce was still pretty beautiful! I was truly amazed at the colors of the landscape in Utah. Its definitely a place I want to go back to one day. (I apologize in advance for the length of this post. Between the beauty of Utah, followed by a visit to the Grand Canyon, I found it really hard to weed through all of my pictures to just pick the best ones.)

Day 12 - August 6, 2011

(Bryce Canyon National Park - outside of Tropic, Utah)

(Natural Bridge - a rock formation in Bryce Canyon)

(Bryce Canyon National Park - it was absolutely beautiful!)

(more Bryce Canyon)

(and more Bryce Canyon)

(me at Bryce Canyon)

(another one of me at Bryce Canyon)

(looking out over Bryce Canyon)

(At Rainbow Point at Bryce Canyon. Its the highest elevation at the park [somewhere around 9,000 feet and the colors are spectacular...which you can't really tell from this picture])

(Welcome back to Arizona!)

(Vermillion Cliffs in Arizona - about 2 hours outside of the Grand Canyon)

(This part of the trip needs an explanation. When we left Bryce Canyon, we drove a scenic route in Arizona to the Grand Canyon. Along the way were points of interest to stop at - one being the Vermillion Cliffs in the previous picture. This place was called Cliff Dwellings, and since this is an area with hundreds of years of Native American history, we assumed that the Cliff Dwellings had something to do with them. We are also pretty close to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado at this point, and that entire park is all about the cliff dwellings there. This place, in Arizona, is right on the side of the road, so you can't miss it as you drive by. So of course we stopped...and found out that there is nothing here that is related to Native Americans, nor are these dwellings hundreds of years old. Instead, they exist because in the 1920s, some lady's car broke down and she spent the night here. She apparently realized that she could make something from these rocks, so she built small homes/dwellings out of the rocks and this eventually became a lodge and a tourist attraction. Now it just sits on the roadside, looking like an ancient cliff dwelling, and fooling anyone who checks it out! So all in all, not what we were expecting, but interesting nonetheless. )

(a complete view of the main house at Cliff Dwellings)

(Me, by the Cliff Dwellings - most of those large rocks were turned into small living spaces. If you look closely at this picture, wherever there is an opening to crawl through, in or under the rocks, is where the entrance to the dwelling was. And in the background, I'm pretty sure thats an edge of the Vermillion Cliffs.)

(me at the Cliff Dwellings)

(a good example of what the dwellings looked like. The huge rocks were there to begin with and then smaller rocks were used to create the rest of the home.)

(me inside the dwelling from the picture above)

(me in the entrance to another one of the dwellings - this one used rocks and wood to "finish" the house)


Day 13 - August 7, 2011

(The Grand Canyon...which really needs no explanation)

(me at the Grand Canyon!! I have to admit that while Arizona didn't impress me as a whole, the Grand Canyon was pretty darn impressive!)

(Thomas and me at the main viewpoint at the Grand Canyon. This is the only place that has railings, and the lack of railings in the rest of the park was terrifying to me!)

(The trail we hiked at the Grand Canyon. It goes down all the way to the Colorado River at the bottom, but we only hiked to a point called "Ohh Ahh Point" to watch the sunset. The name sounded really cheesy at first, but if you watch the sunset from there, its definitely a place to say "ohh and ahh"!)

(looking up the trail)

(This was an interesting part of the hike. Aside from the fact that there are signs everywhere telling people not to feed any wild animals, squirrels in general shouldn't really be as friendly as this one was. I grew up in an area where rabies is pretty prominent, so this actually freaked me out a little. Meanwhile, the guy in this picture with me isn't Thomas. Its a random guy from Switzerland that we ran into as we were hiking. It turns out that there are no squirrels in Switzerland [who knew?], so he thought this was the coolest thing in the entire world. Thomas said something along the lines of "umm why is that squirrel so friendly?" and Swiss guy responded with "Is that ACTUALLY a squirrel!?!?" It was pretty funny to hear. I guess squirrels are so common that it just seemed weird to see someone so excited to see one.)

(Once we saw how fat this squirrel was, we quickly realized that he wasn't a rabid squirrel. He was just a wild animal who had been fed by people over and over, and now he expects food from everyone. He even climbed on top of Thomas' bag, where he had granola bars, and chirped angrily at Thomas. Talk about a demanding little rodent!)

(And then I freaked out a little, because it jumped into my lap...which I wasn't expecting. Meanwhile, Mr. Swiss guy thought I was a complete nutcase for being scared of a squirrel.)

(So once we decided that it wasn't rabid, and once I got over my initial shock from it jumping into my lap, I decided that it was a cute squirrel and pet it in my lap, until it decided to jump down and chirp at us again, while trying to open the bag that Thomas had.)

(Mr. Swiss guy decided that since we weren't giving any food to the squirrel, he would give it some water. And the squirrel happily drank his water.)

(View of the Grand Canyon from the trail)

(me sitting on a huge rock on the trail, overlooking the Grand Canyon)

(me sitting on an edge...did I mention that there are no guard rails anywhere?)

(me looking tiny on the same ledge as the picture above...Thomas just walked further away to get a better perspective of where I was. This looks like a horrible drop down if I were to fall, but its nothing compared to where we ended up at the end of the hike. This was scary, but this isn't a at the very edge of the canyon. The trail that we were hiking looped around and went right underneath this point, so the ground isn't a mile away here. That picture is coming up.)

(another view from the trail)

(Moon over the Grand Canyon - just before sunset)

(The sun starting to set over the Grand Canyon)

(Sunset at the Grand Canyon)

(another view of the moon, from farther down the trail)

(Now we're at the really scary part with no railings. This is "Ohh Ahh" Point and its a beautiful view. However, its VERY windy here and there is a straight drop down to the bottom of the canyon here - which is about a mile down. So I found this little hole and cowered here because I had no intention of going any closer to the edge. Meanwhile, look behind me. There's Mr. Swiss guy again perched on the rock I'm cowering under. From where he is, there is NOTHING to catch him if he falls. At least I still had about 3 more feet before I would go plummeting off the edge. And the two random people sitting there had about 2 feet before they went plummeting off. But not Mr. Swiss guy. One misstep and he was going to die. He was seriously making me nervous. At one point he got up and walked back and forth across the edge of this rock...which isn't even a flat rock (meaning its tilted and not parallel to the ground)! Who in their right mind would just walk back and forth along that edge like that? I was seriously on the verge of hyperventilating in fear just watching him. We never did see him walk back up the trail...so I hope he didn't fall in. I wish I was joking...)

(This is a bad picture of me, but its my proof that I eventually came out of my hole. Thomas convinced me to crawl up to this point and sit because the rock was actually perfectly shaped as a seat right here. So I got brave, crawled up here, froze in this position and only managed to turn my head slightly for this picture. Then I panicked about how I was going to get down. I honestly don't even remember how I got down. But there is nothing misleading about this picture. My right foot is about 6 inches away from a one mile drop into the canyon. And look at my hair...did I mention it was windy??)

(This is the view from the rock I'm sitting on in the picture above...but Thomas took this. I was too frozen to even snap a picture at this point.)

(sunset over the Grand Canyon - the end of our day here)

Day 14 - August 8, 2011

(Driving on historic Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona)

(Sunset Crater National Monument outside of Flagstaff, Arizona- did you know that there is a HUGE field of volcanoes across Arizona? I didn't...until this trip. Seeing a sign pointing towards a volcano got my attention, because we were in Arizona. When I think of Arizona I think of the Grand Canyon and Native Americans, not volcanoes. But it turns out that these volcanoes take up a pretty large area near the Grand Canyon. Who knew?)

(Every single one of those peaks in the distance is a volcano. Its called the San Fransisco Volcanic Field. How did I never know that this existed? These volcanoes aren't as ancient as you would think either. People were living in this area when some of them erupted. There are stories of entire Native American tribes picking up and moving their entire settlement because of a volcanic eruption. So they are several hundred years old, but since I had never heard of this before, I initially assumed they were ancient volcanoes - as in dinosaur age volcanoes, but I was wrong.)

(Sunset Crater - outside of Flagstaff, Arizona)

(I was truly amazed by this place. The park is named Sunset Crater National Monument, and it focuses mainly on that particular volcano. But even within the park, there are other volcanoes. This little red cone is one. If I was up on my volcano knowledge I would be able to tell you why this cone is red, while others aren't, but to be honest, I can't remember why. But still - its a volcano! In Arizona! Can you tell this was amazing to me? And those mountains behind the red cone are also volcanoes!)

(an old lava flow from Sunset Crater)

(That's Sunset Crater behind us)

(a lava squeeze up - again, I'm not up on my volcano knowledge, but the very unscientific definition of what this is, is an area where a lava layer cooled, then split apart as more lava squeezed up between the cooled, cracked lava.)

(me by a lava squeeze up)

(Me by a lava tube aka where lava used to flow through a hole in the ground. We saw these in Hawaii, but in Hawaii you could actually walk through them. That park was a bit more "wild" and not concerned about visitor safety. But here, this was as close as you could get to the lava tube. This one looked like it just went on and on forever.)

(Literally just down the road from Sunset Crater is Wupatki National Monument - Native American ruins.)

(Wupatki pueblo ruins - an 800 year old Native American settlement - I was fascinated by this place because I love American history, but my one complaint about the west is that history isn't that old. I tend to forget that there is history prior to this becoming America, and this was the first time I was able to see that history. Its kind of neat to think that America has only been a country for about 250 years. These ruins were from people who lived here 800 years ago!)

(inside the Wupatki ruins)

(Wukoki Pueblo ruins - another 800ish year old ruin)

(the back of the Wukoki ruins - I love how they used rock that was already there and just built on top of it.)

(me in the Wukoki Ruins)

(at the Wukoki ruins, overlooking the Arizona desert. To put this into perspective, there were volcanic rocks all over this area (which you'll see in the next picture). The Volcanic Field is right next to this. So basically, there's a huge volcanic field, right next to a huge desert. The landscape was just really interesting to me.)

(The Citadel Ruins - another Native American pueblo site near the Wupatki and Wukoki ruins. This one was interesting because it sat on top of a huge hill, which at one point was another volcano. Plus, the Native Americans who built this one used huge pieces of volcanic rock mixed in with their adobe bricks. I guess they took advantage of everything they could for building. This picture is of a building at the bottom of the hill, but the main site at the Citadel sat on top of the hill [I just don't have great pictures of it].)

(Driving to the Northeast of the Grand Canyon towards Colorado. This is a rainbow over the edge of the Painted Desert.)

(We didn't have the time to visit the Painted Desert, but we drove along the edge of it. It was pretty at the edge, so I can't imagine what it looks like once you're really in it.)

Next stop - Colorado! And another blog entry....