Sunday, August 8, 2010

Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona...almost



As of Saturday of last week, we were 1009 miles from home, soaking up some air conditioning at my parent's condo in Las Vegas. Lubbock was three day behind us, along with the entire states of New Mexico and Arizona, the The South rim of the Grand Canyon, two Motel 6s, bags and bags of candy and veggies and fruit, about 12 audio chapters of The Deathly Hallows, and the winding traffic crawling across the top of the Hoover Dam.

Now we're in Utah with the QB's family and we just finished vegetarian rueben sandwiches, French onion soup, and key lime cheese cake for the QB's birthday. We've got lots of pictures to share and we'll slowly get them up, but we just wanted to update you all on our adventure.

Here's the first set of pictures, mostly from the Grand Canyon.

"The canyon was Grand," says the QB. Mr. Baseball wanted to take a lot of pictures.



The Monkey conked about 4pm near the end of the shuttle line on the south rim. He slept for about fifteen minutes before getting his energy back. As a result of his nap he missed both a water break and a potty break.


He went from wiggly and bouncing off the walls to this in about two minutes.



The cannon ball (that's the name we've decided on, by the way) was asleep too.




The boys thought the canyon was sooo big.




We wish the cannon ball could have gotten more of a kick out of the view. As far as he was concerned, the trip was great because he got held all day. We could have been back home for all he cared.





Aubrey, the QBs little sister, came along for the trip and was a big help. We were glad to have her around.





We stayed at a hotel in Holbrook, AZ, a few hours east of the Canyon, and spent the evening swimming and eating microwave dinners in the hotel room. The Cannon Ball didn't want to go in the water much, but he liked watchi







We brought sandwiches for lunch--and I didn't want to share.






The thing about going to the grand canyon is...all your photos look like you're standing in front of a fake cardboard backdrop. But really, we were there.

Really.



We took this at the John Wesley Powell overlook. In 1869 Powell led his men down the canyon on long boats. I kept thinking the canyon looked like a photograph, but Powell and his men wouldn't have had that reference point--how did they describe the vista? the way the horizon performs the double magic of both foreshortening into a two-dimensional screen and fading away into an ever expanding horizon?




The first great trick of the Grand Canyon's South Rim is that you get there, but you aren't really there yet. We figured we would arrive at about 10:30 a.m, but that was just to the town outside the park. We didn't actually get to the rim until almost noon. That's where we ate lunch and started our tour.



We had no idea until we chanced upon this Motor Inn (called the Wigwam Hotel) in Holbrook, AZ, but the town we stayed in our first night is a historical oute 66 town and one of the places used as a model for the movie Cars.


It's on the historical registry and looks like an incredible place to stay for kiddos. We thought all the old cars were a nice touch.


1 comment:

SLReid said...

My friend Marianne reads your post all of the time - she subscribes to it - and LOVES to read about your adventures! After reading this post she wrote me this in an e-mail:

"On reading the latest FRANKLIN CHRONICLE:

Sherri - Likely this has been said 35 thousand times, but these folks need to give up their day jobs and figure two things out:

1. How to bottle their jaw-dropping ENERGY to market to the rest of us Slackers.

2. How to gather EVERYTHING together that they've written and photographed, both together and maybe a little bit before for background, and create a Graphic Novel titled something like: "The Birth Years - Mormons on the Loose."
(corny, catchy, so folks stop, wonder, and buy it)

Holy Geez...I thought they had done ALL THAT WORK on their house so they could relax, kick back, enjoy the beauty, and wait for the rest of the family to find THEM."


Thought you'd love the comment! I love your posts too and am always excited when I get them in my inbox. It is a great way to stay in touch with what you folks are up to. Love to you all! Sherri