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Life On the Road Week 4 – Arizona

Greetings from Arizona! I can’t believe we are in our 5th week on the road! Last week was a bit of a whirlwind with the end of Dewey’s visit. He headed back to Calgary and Evan and I headed for the Grand Canyon. Since we were in Utah, the North Rim was MUCH closer so we decided that was where we would visit.

I have heard varying opinions on the Grand Canyon so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was either going to be amazing it just another hole in the ground.

Thankfully, Evan and I LOVED the Grand Canyon. We didn’t hike into the canyon but we did do the rim trail. We got to see deer, lizards and birds along the way. The wind was honking so it felt like we might fly off the rim!

Geology talk at Grand Canyon North rim

As part of Evan’s ranger badge, we listened to a geology talk at the Lodge. If you visit the North Rim, definitely check out the lodge, the view from the veranda is amazing! I want to go back and stay at the Lodge.

After leaving the North Rim, we headed to Flagstaff. Cooper was in SAD shape so I found a doggie spa that had time to give him a bath and a trim. While he was there, Evan and I went to visit the Wupatki National Monument to see ancient Pueblos. It was a nice quick trip and Evan got another Ranger Badge!

Pueblos at Wupatki-life on the road

Flagstaff seemed like a great little town but I didn’t really want to stay in a bigger town. We decided to leave and head to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest National Parks.

Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona

First we had to stop in Winslow, Arizona for a little photo op. How could we not! I told Dewey where we were going to stop and he sang the song to us. I loved making a stop on Historic Route 66!

Evan and I at the petrified forest

Evan had a great time looking at the Petrified wood but he said “NO MORE!” when I suggested he needed to get the ranger badge. We drove through the whole park stopping at the different overlooks that looked interesting. Evan much preferred the Petrified  Forest to the desert.

On the way home we stopped at one of the many petrified wood gift shops. The one we chose had a “get a free half pound of petrified wood” coupon on the booklet from out campsite. Evan was STOKED. He went in and looked through the millions of that bins full of rocks, minerals and fossils. I swear he looked at everything twice. When I finally got him to the register, he showed his coupon. The guy laughed (he watched me cajole Evan to get him to leave) and said “you’ll need to go pick that out of the petrified wood pile outside.

Nooooooooo!

We headed outside and faced the giant rock pile. We decided that we didn’t need a half pound rock to carry around so Evan decided he would pick one small rock for himself and two others for gifts (if you get one…act surprised). Amazingly it only took a normal amount of time. Everyone survived.

Oh, and I had a complete meltdown dealing with the trailer. I couldn’t get the chains off and I backed into the trailer tongue. Thankfully someone came to help before I completely lost my shiz. While the campground was a bit old, it got major bonus points for being so awesome to a freaking out mom from Calgary.

Overall, it was another amazing week and we finished it off heading to Pheonix and Tucson to visit friends. Stay tuned to hear about that next week!

nicole morgan

Thursday 19th of October 2017

Living the dream darling!