Flagstaff, the trip that probably shoudnt have been!

Since Chris and I had Friday off work, we decided to take a trip up to Flagstaff to do some touristy things with the kids. We left Thursday after I got off of work and headed up to Flagstaff. Was a nice drive up, we went through Payson to avoid traffic and the scenery was beautiful. We woke up Friday morning to Delaney finding our car broken into. They stole my Ipod and my very good Canon Digital SLR camera. Heres a pic of the window.

After spending time on the phone with the insurance and then the local police, we headed to a local carwash to vacuum up all the glass. We were the only one at our hotel hit, but another car across the way was also hit. The insurance lady was very nice trying to help us get our window replaced in Flagstaff, but because of the holiday the warehouses were closed, so even though Safelite was open they couldnt get the glass. So we scheduled it to be fixed Saturday morning at our house. We would have to drive the rest of the day with the window broken. Well since we were now a little behind on time, we just decided to head straight to the Grand Canyon. Been years since Chris and I had been there and it was the kids' first time. I was in awe as you walked up to the edge, it looked like a huge painting, like it wasnt real. Was really kinda funny, Cody was scared to death of the edge, Chris had to drag him to get the pic of the kids. He was a little better where there was a fence he could lean on though.

After we left the Canyon we were heading to SnowBowl to do the Scenic ride up the mountain. On our way there we passed this awesome Flintstone camping area and of course had to get out and take some pics!

When we got to Snow Bowl, there was a little delay as there had been a lightening strike and we had to wait about 20 minutes before we could buy our tickets. So we went outside and sat at the picnic tables. Not more than 2 minutes later its starts raining, as we head inside to get a table, it started hailing. Was funny to watch the people coming off the ride soaked. We waited out the hail storm for about an hour, and then around 3 they finally came into the lodge and told all of us they were shutting down the lift for the day. Major bummer. Get in the car, head back down the mountain.

the ride that could have been

We left Snowbowl and thought that since we had gained some time, we would go do Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki National Monuments. Well since we were coming from north of Flagstaff we decided to follow GPS (my directions were from Flagstaff). It had us turn off on some random road. Let me tell you, this was not a road, turns out it was trails through the cinder trails. I was starting to get a little concerned, I mean this road was a car and a half wide and tons of ruts and puddles. It was sprinkling, and I said to Chris if it really starts raining, we need to turn around and high tail it outta there. Finally after going like 6 or 7 miles, and passing 2 sets of ATVers who looked at us like we were crazy, Cody finally spotted road. We made it onto the road and I was so relieved. We traveled about 15more miles and came across the Wupatki ruins, but since we had bypassed the main entry to the area, we never paid, so we couldnt go out and look, lol!! On our way back out to the highway, we stopped at a couple places so the kids could climb a lava mountain and then again at the Citadel ruins. When we got back to the main highway, turns out if we had gone only a couple more miles we would have found the main entrance to the area.

Kids at a lava mountain

at the Citadel ruins

We stopped and ate in Flagstaff and then headed our way back down. We seemed to be about 10 minutes behind the storms the whole way down, which considering I was missing a window was good. Wasnt till we hit Alma School on the 60 that we really hit the storms and I was getting pelted with rain. All in all a good trip considering. But now we have to go back up to do the lift, and we will do the Sunset crater area the right way.

a rainbow end to end about 60 miles out of Flagstaff

I know the pics may be a bit grainey, they were taken with our cell phones.