The Great West, day 3 (AZ)

We backtracked a bit this morning to travel through Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. The morning began with a "Happy Birthday" for Taylor at the gift shop when he received a phone call from Mamaw on his new phone. He also had text messages from Aunt Amanda, Katelin and Brappaw. I think we managed to surprise him. He seemed tickled with his new toy. Glad to now have a camera of his own, he went to town taking pictures of the geodes and agates at the gift shop. Samuel and Caleb got busy picking out special rocks for him. It was like watching kids in a candy shop as they marveled at all the interesting rocks and wood. We then made the 28 mile drive through the desert east of Holbrook, AZ. The first stop was Rainbow Forest Museum where we began a small hike through the remains of Petrified Forest and saw several cacti and pieces of trees. Before we got back in the car we saw the park's most massive log, "Old Faithful" and took in the sights of the beautiful petrified wood. (Some of the logs looked as though they had melted crayons over them.) We stopped at Agate Bridge and saw a tree that had fallen across a gully and remained there long enough to turn in solid agate. Next we saw The Tepees – an interesting mountain formation of colorful gray, blue, purple, and white and stripes. Although pretty in its own way, we decided that the Badlands of SD are much more impressive to us. There is not much wildlife to be seen around here, but we did manage to sneak a peek at a prairie dog and bunny this morning. There was a stop on the route called Newspaper Rock that was quite fascinating. Off in the distance viewable with viewfinders, we could see petroglyphs carved on the rocks. Samuel discovered one that even looked like the Arrow of Light (a Scout symbol). While at this stop we were entertained by a bold raven. He sat on a post just watching us, undaunted by our presence. I had just finished coring a couple of apples, so Nathan decided to offer him a bite. He flew over to where Nathan had tossed it and held it with his foot and went to town. I imagine the poor guy was parched. We waited for him to finish and then gave him the other core; he seemed quite grateful. We were winding down the drive when all of a sudden we rounded a corner and BAM! There it was… the gorgeous vibrant Painted Desert. It made the first part of our drive look more like a black and white picture. The last views were breath taking and the colors so electrified! The drive brought us out on 40 again east of Holbrook.

We recovered all that distance and then headed to Meteor Crater - "the best preserved meteoric crater on earth." We asked why the main part of the meteor was not still in the hole which measures about 2.4 miles around, nearly a mile across, and over 550 ft deep. To give an idea the brochure reads "It would accommodate two million fans on the crater walls watching 20 football games being played simultaneously on the crater floor." The ranger explained that the largest portion was so hot and coming in so fast that on impact the iron and rock experienced limited vaporization and extensive melting. We toured through the museum and saw the largest portion of the meteor that they have. It’s probably about 2 ft wide and weighs 1049 lbs. We were told that that particular piece was discovered a couple of miles from the site back in the early 1900s. It is said that this lunar-like landscape was created 50,000 years ago. (Go figure - as always we laugh and walk on past all the info that reports that things were created millions of years ago and such.) It was used as an official training site for the Apollo astronauts. The winds were unreal on the rim! We hiked down a bit to get a closer look, but boy, oh boy, those winds!!

Our next destination was Flagstaff, so another stint in the van…sigh. We arrived to the KOA in Flagstaff where we had planned on tent camping. The only available sites were 2 concrete pads. Not ideal for tent camping in sleeping bags. Now in Flagstaff we realized that we were still 72 miles from the Southern Rim…GROAN! We then opted to look into camping closer in and discovered Mathis Campground inside The Grand Canyon National Park. Nathan called to check on availability and was told that reservations could not be made for today but that he could reserve for tomorrow. So he did go ahead and lock down our site for tomorrow night. We would have to actually make the drive up to determine whether or not the site was available for tonight. Going on faith that there would surely be SOMETHING available SOMEWHERE we made the hour and half drive up into the park. Along the way I noticed that contrary to popular belief, up here anyway, the grass is pinker on the other side of the fence thanks to the mountain grasses. Nathan had been told that our campsite reserved for Saturday would be 178, so we drove straight to Mathis Campground inside of Grand Canyon National Park. The sign outside of the campground read "campground full" but we proceeded on anyway. When we have stayed at State Parks the policy was claim your site and then go pay for it, so we drove to 178 in hopes that the site would be vacant ... and it was!! Taylor, Caleb, Andrew and I got out and began setting up the tent while Samuel and Nathan went to pay. Nathan came back with an amazing story! He said that when he went in to pay, the ranger scolded him for setting up camp before checking in and that payment and arrangements were ALWAYS to be made before setting up. Nathan apologized for the confusion and explained that we had reservations for Saturday night and that we were just trying to get the same site so that we wouldn't have to move. The ranger went on to say that there were NO availabilities for tonight and that they had been booked for months. (I'm not sure whether people book ahead of time and then don't show because we have seen many empty sites, but nonetheless we were told that we would not be able to camp here tonight - no room in the inn.) The ranger again began scolding and said that he had NEVER as long as he had worked here had someone pull into a site and then find it available without a reservation. He was prepared to tell us to leave when he said, "Wait, and I'll look for any cancellations." Nathan said that he turned ghostly white in the face and looked at him and said, "I don't believe this! The only cancellation that we have just happens to be the very site that you set up on and picked." Nathan asked, "How many campsites do you have here?" To which he replied, "327." Nathan figured we had a 1 in 327 chance of setting up on the one that had been canceled. He said, "No, that's impossible odds! When I get off work I'm going to come get you, and you and I are going to buy a lottery ticket. One would have a better chance of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning than pulling in and finding a vacancy, let alone driving right to it." It definitely had to have been God!!

After setting up we stopped by the general store in the park and then made a beeline to Yavapai Overlook to catch the sunset on the Canyon. We were greeted by three does grazing casually in the median of the parking lot. As we headed down to the overlook and it came into view we were amazed! It was absolutely breathtaking!! The longer I stood and looked down on it, the more my eyes played tricks on me. It was so very deep and layered that if you looked at it long enough you could become confused as to which sections were rising up and which were dropping into the Canyon. The skies were clear, and we had a full moon tonight. There was only canyon to be seen for 180 degrees. We spotted an elk crossing in a crosswalk of the park as we headed back down to Tusayan. We ate dinner at Yippee-Ei-O Steakhouse and celebrated with steak, rattlesnake and a cowboys’ rendition of Happy Birthday and some chocolate cake for Taylor. (He kept watching his back and looking over his shoulder to make sure there wouldn’t be a surprise pie in the face for him.) He also managed to catch the song of a cricket in his new phone for a ringtone. We then headed back to camp and stopped once more at the overlook for a view in the moonlight and then turned in for the evening. According to the weather on my phone, it shows that Grand Canyon is to have a record low of 29 degrees tonight. BRRR!