Zion national park

Another beautiful, majestic, awesome national park.  We stayed in the Zion Lodge, which is about 3 miles from the visitors center, so you are right in the middle of the valley where all the great sites and hiking trails are.  We arrived Tuesday afternoon and took it easy after a day of driving.  We got lucky with the weather, it's normally pretty hot here, but it rained on Wednesday, so we were able to do a full day of hiking in relatively cool, cloudy weather.  We did a ranger hike for the kids, then the narrows hike which takes you along the river and into the narrowest part of the main canyon.  There was a flash flood warning, so we decided to wait until the next day to hike into the river. 

We then did a hike up to "Weeping Rock" which was beautiful -- in the middle of a desert you have these sections where the water seeps through the rock and creates "hanging gardens":

We all then decided to hike up a rather steep and treacherous trail to "hidden canyon" -- Brandon and I stopped when it got a bit too steep and scary, which included having to hold on to chains in places where the trail basically sloped off to a cliff.  Mike and Andrew made it all the way, but I was glad Brandon and I skipped it -- we both have vertigo and it would have been very problematic. 

The boys have been doing amazingly well with all the hiking -- they both have tons of energy, even after a full day of steep climbs.  Today was a sunny day, but the temperatures stayed reasonable.  I'll post more pictures if I have time in the morning.  Next stop will be camping in Bryce Canyon, so we won't have internet access for a few days.

Grand Canyon - North Rim

I thought the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was spectacular, but the North Rim was even better.  Fewer crowds, accomodations right on the rim, and some wonderful hiking.  The drive, however, was also amazing.  The scenery during the drive was almost as spectacular as the canyon itself. 

We were lucky to get 2 nights at the Grand Canyon Lodge at the North rim, which was well worth the stay.  It's a beautiful old lodge right on the rim, so we were able to hang out on the porch and enjoy the scenery, as well as the stars at night.  The first night they had an astronomy talk and a telescope so we were able to see Saturn and it's rings.  It is dark enough that the stars are really great and you can see the milky way.  We did another hike on the Kaibab trail which goes down into the canyon -- we only went as far as the first water stop, about 2 miles, but the boys did really well, despite all the mule droppings and dust.

We had some wonderful meals at the lodge and did a cook-out at the campground which was fun for the kids.  I also got up early Sunday morning (5:15am) to catch the sunrise.

We really loved the North Rim and can't wait to head to Zion National Park.  On the way to Zion, we stopped at Navajo Bridge and will also make quick stops at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam.

Grand Canyon - South Rim

The drive from petrified forest to the Grand Canyon was uneventful, and mostly desert until we got to Flagstaff.  Immediate change in temperature and landscape!  Flagstaff seemed like a cute city, lots of pine trees and cute store fronts.  I was very excited to get my first view of the Grand Canyon, so once we arrived, we went straight to the visitor center, and headed for the rim.  It was as awe-inspiring as I expected.

We camped while we were on the South Rim, and the boys had fun helping us by getting water while we set up the tent, and then we had a nice spaghetti dinner followed by s'mores.  We made sure Brandon got his junior ranger packet so he could start working on that right away.  He finished it by the end of our second day in the canyon.

We did a lot of the scheduled activities, including the campfire talk in the campground (heard some tall tales about the Grand Canyon about the Condors), the fossil walk (very cool!! - below are fossil shells)

And we hiked part of the scenic drive and then took the bus to Hermit's rest -- needless to say I took tons of photos, here are a few (there are a few more on Facebook):

A wonderful sighting of the extremely endangered California Condor

 One of the highlights for me was watching the sun set over the canyon -- almost as spectacular as sunrise on the North Rim (more on that later...)

Overall the camping was fun, the boys fared extremely well on the hikes, particularly the hike into the canyon on Bright Angel trail:

More to come from the North Rim!  (if you can't wait, I have posted some pictures on Facebook)

Petrified Forest

Brandon gets another junior ranger badge 

painted desert

Tee pees

Blue Mesa

cool rock!

Badlands

Photos from Day 2 (July 17th) -- from Texas to Arizona...

We saw trains...lots and lots and lots of trains...

Beautiful New Mexico

Cathedral rock, I think this is right before we crossed into Arizona...Gallup, New Mexico

Another Summer, Another family trip -- Driving the Southwest National Parks

Our adventure began Saturday, July 16th.  Aiming for an early morning departure, we promptly left the house around 12:30 pm, made a stop to drop off a video at the library, get some cash, gas, and finally made it onto the road around 1:30.  All was going well until I managed to zap Mike's MP3 player with an electrostatic shock from the cord that plugs into the car radio -- it is dead.  I have prayed over it, and tried some faith healing, but it appears to be gone.  Luckily we can rely on my MP3 player, but it doesn't hold as much music, so we may get tired of the music after a while...Then we blew a fuse, and had to buy more fuses in Llano.  Luckily we figured out that problem.

So after such an auspicious start, we did manage to make it as far as Lubbock, where we spent the night.  We did a quick tour of the Texas Tech campus before hitting the road for Arizona and Petrified Forest National Park.  I will upload photos in my next post.

London

At the Museum of Natural History

Riding the Tube!

On the Millenium Bridge, St. Paul's in the Background

The boys discover they like Indian food!

A beef eater guards the crown jewels at the Tower of London

Brandon poses with an archer

Ready for Battle!

On the ramparts at the Tower of London

Learning all about medieval weaponry

The tower bridge

We have been home for a week now, and I'm just getting around to posting some of the pictures from our last few days in London. We had a great time -- we spent an entire day at the Tower of London. The boys really loved seeing everything there. We also went to the Science Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Tate Modern, and the British Museum. London was expensive, but all the museums are free, so that helped.