Grand Falls

Ok, this is my last post and then I'm all caught up until I do something fun again (hopefully this weekend).

Last Sunday, I happened to be on Facebook first thing in the am and my friend contacted me to see what I was doing and if I wanted to go with them to Grand Falls. I had been planning on going back to Sedona and looking for Devil's Bridge again, but decided to forgo and try something new. Man, did I ever make the right decision. Because of the amount of snow we've had this winter and the warm weather lately, the falls were absolutely raging. The canyon itself is fairly incredible, but the waterfall was as surprising as it was beautiful. I was blown away. It was a little nerve wracking, as the cliffs were tall and the water was raging and my son has no fear, but everyone made it out okay.


I know this is too many pictures, but I couldn't resist.

Okay, this is the pile of sludge bundled up at the bottom. Pretty gross. There's at least 8 tires in that.

Sedona

This is a perfect time of year for hiking in Sedona. So much so that the week of St Patty's Day I went down there twice. The first time was with my friends the day after St. Patty's. Needless to say we got a pretty late start and then we got stuck in the most ridiculous traffic. It was almost a failed day, but what the heck? We ended up next to a creek and there was still a little sun left, so complaints are out the window.

That weekend, I went for a hike with Otto. Again, we got a pretty late start. We were trying to find a place called Devil's Bridge, but because of my despicable map reading skills, we ended up scrapping the search and just following a random trail. It was beautiful. Otto is such a great little hiking buddy. He's curious and observant and doesn't complain. He sings songs and he loves his camelback so much that he drinks a ton of water and then pees constantly. He wants to try all the things we've seen on Survivor Man and Man vs Wild. We tried to make a needle and thread out of a yucca leaf, but it didn't exactly work out for us.

dinosaur?? eagle??

lost in the desert

exploration

yucca

all tuckered out

Phoenix Weekend (March 12-15)

A few weeks before we went to Phoenix with the intention of going to the Renaissance Fair, but low and behold, it went and got flooded and so we went to an arcade and roller skating instead. We also had a tire blowout and needless to say it was a total bust of day. Spring Break then rolled around and we decided to go back down and hope for better luck. Otto and I went with my niece, Chandra, her husband, Shawn and their friend, Andrew. Life with 22-23 year olds is always more interesting :) especially when they get doused with water.

We had an incredible time and the weather was just perfect and I got sunburned right away. We went and saw Dead Bob first thing and Otto was certainly impressed by his foul mouth. We caught a few other shows too, but mostly just browsed the shops. The joust at the end of the day was a fight to the death, which I had never seen before. I was more than a little surprised when one of them slit the other's throat and blood spurted out. Yikes! The food was absolutely horrendous and the traffic both there and out was a nightmare, but hey, it's Phoenix.

Of course I only ended up with pics of Otto.

Dead Bob! I felt really bad for these elephants, but they were so freaking cool to look at.

Joust to the death. Bwah hah hah

Dragon tooth

We also went to the aquarium at the World Wildlife Zoo. It was pretty unimpressive. I had been wanting to go and now I've gone and probably won't go back anytime soon.