Arizona

On Easter, we left for our week-long vacation to Arizona!  We stayed the night in Las Vegas, then got to Flagstaff Monday evening.  We spent two days in Northern Arizona, one day travelling south, then two days in Southern Arizona.
  
On the way to Flagstaff, we stopped to walk over Hoover Dam.  It was blazing hot, which the kids mentioned quite a few times.
  

We stayed in a beautiful vacation rental in Flagstaff (it was actually just a house in a suburb, but since it was Flagstaff, even the suburb was gorgeous.)  Tuesday was Grand Canyon Day.  Neither Ryan nor I had ever been, so we were all pretty amazed.  It's like a huge canyon . . .with a really big canyon at the bottom of it.  Yeah.  The kids did Junior Ranger badges, and we walked the trail around the rim all afternoon.
   

Dad and Kids climbed down from the recommended walking area.  I was not pleased.

After about 100 shots, I'm trying to tell Ryan how not to look goofy in this sunset picture.

He really tried, but we finally gave up :-)

Wednesday, we drove to Wupatki National Monument to look at ancient ruins.  You can actually walk through these thousand-year-old dwellings, imagining the people who lived there.
   

"Cave"

Corinne was most impressed with the sand.

  
On the way back from Wupatki is Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument.  There are a bunch of huge lava fields there, with volcanic rocks and twisted formations.
    

At the end of the day, we stopped at Meteor Crater, where a large meteor left . . . . well, a crater.  It was actually amazing, and had a great museum at the rim.  Apparently there are craters like this all over the world, but over time they erode or are covered with vegetation or water.  This one is relatively young (50,000 years.)

 
Thursday was a travel day.  We went down through Sedona, saw Montezuma Castle (a ruin,) and hung out at the Mesa Temple.  We also visited with my old mission companion, Adrienne, and her family.  (I forgot to take pictures.)
   

 

  

We stayed in Tucson in a little golf/vacation community.  It wasn't as fancy as the place in Flagstaff, but it had a herd of Javelinas, which totally made up for its grossness.  It was surrounded by Sonoran desert, complete with ocotillo plants, which are pretty much the weirdest and coolest plants I've ever seen.
   

Ocotillo (online picture)

           

Friday was the main event of the trip for Ryan.  We visited the Titan Missile Museum, the last remaining Titan II missile silo from the cold war.  It's now a museum, and the tour takes you down into the bunker.  The tour guide explained what the job was like (he used to work there,) including showing us the keys they would have turned to start World War 3.  Corinne was really noisy, so I only heard about half of the tour (I kept leaving so as not to bother everyone else.)

    

Blast Door

  

Missile Window

  

Connor worked hard to earn a Junior Missileer Badge

  

While Connor was working, the other kids played in the education room.

     
On Saturday, we did a tour of Kartchner Caverns.  This was ranked as almost everybody's favorite activity of the trip.  The caverns were kept a secret until they opened as a State Park, so they are almost perfectly preserved.  No pictures were allowed in the cave, but we got a shot by this display.
     

  

We did a driving tour through Saguaro National Park.  Definitely an iconic-looking desert.  You'd almost think somebody landscaped it.  On the way out, we saw a Gila monster crossing the road!  Everybody jumped out to look, but we didn't get too close.

      

  

  

Gila Monster

Our last Arizona stop was at the Pima Air and Space Museum.  Ryan has a thing for airplanes, especially old ones.  He and Connor did the outdoor guided tour while I hung out inside with the little ones.  The World War 2 exhibits were especially awesome.  No P-47 Thunderbolts, but they did have Flying Fortresses, and a P-51 Mustang, among lots of other things.

    

Flying Fortress

  

 

Ryan loves chatting with docents.

We drove back Sunday.  I had no idea Arizona had so much cool stuff!