Arizona

On the way to Flagstaff, we visited the Petrified Forest and Meteor Crater, both mind-boggling, in their own ways. It was hard to imagine that arid, desolate, barren landscape, with no plants bigger than sage brush, having once been a tropical forest.

It was equally hard to imagine a 150 foot diameter chunk of iron and nickel hitting the ground at 40,000 mph, making a hole half a mile wide, throwing debris 7 miles in all directions, vaporizing almost completely on impact, and driving microscopic spherules of nickel 3,000 feet into the ground!

Now we’re back on the road after a relaxing stay at The Hotel Alvarez in Flagstaff. We got the red carpet treatment from the proprietors of that posh establishment, two of Carroll’s Northland College friends, Donna and Alex, and their three children.

The boys racked up some major frequent flier miles on the trampoline, we enjoyed a hot but very scenic hike near Sedona, cooled off in Oak Creek, and did some mountain biking with Alex. Hopefully he picked up enough tricks from the boys that he will win his next race!

We figured the Grand Canyon would be spectacular enough to chase away the lingering blues we had from having to depart the comfy environs of Chez Alvarez, but boy, were we ever wrong! Our first glimpse of the canyon, from Yavapai Point, left both boys thoroughly unimpressed. “I thought it was supposed to be a rock canyon. There were trees growing all over the place in there!”

They gradually warmed up to it after we hiked a little way down the Grandview trail, but even that was fraught with difficulty, because it was HOT; well up in the 90’s, and all the way down, Sam and Carroll were butting heads like a couple of bighorn sheep, about how much water Sam was, or should be, drinking. Finally, he decided to settle the argument and prove that he was drinking enough, by leaving us in the dust on the return trip up to the rim.

Now, all the signs warn that you should plan twice as long to hike back up, as it takes you to hike down. We had spent an hour and fortyfive minutes hiking down… we made it back up in 40 minutes!

More later….