Spring Break Trip Day 7

The day started with a long drive day heading toward Santa Fe, NM as the mid point to get back to Colorado.  The drive was quite nice, but still tiring to drive 6-7 hours in a single chunk.

Once in Santa Fe, we had to get into the local Mexican food scene.  We searched for the most amazing place and landed on a place called The Shed.  Being ignorant tourists, we called midday when they opened to see if they took reservations.  Apparently they do...starting up to three months before you want to eat dinner there because they are so packed.  They said we could come by and put our names on the list if we wanted, so we did that at around 4 pm for hopefully what was a 7 pm dinner.   After coming back around 6 pm, we waited...and waited...and waited.  Finally around 8:30 pm we were finally seated in a small corner and treated to some amazing James Beard winning Mexican food.  This is a picture of the Red and Green smothered Blue Corn Chicken Enchiladas that were spicy enough to almost make you cry.  I believe they were very tasty, though my tongue was mostly soaking in ice water after every bite.  Great place but be sure to make reservations months in advance!

While we waited for food we found some pretty cool local shops to explore.  This is the picture of a giant geode outside of one jewelry shop.  Gavin certainly loved it, but we had to leave it at the store because it wouldn't quite fit in our minivan for the trip home.

Spring Break Trip Day 6

We are always looking for a good hike to get the legs moving and after some research we found the McDowell Senoran Preserve.  There are almost endless miles of looping trails that we were eager to give them a try.  Tara loves the cacti and dessert flowers, and it was fun to share these with the boys this time as usually she comes out to see her dad without us! 

Here are some great flowers along the way.  Tara and the boys found a nice trail called the Gateway Loop trail that took them up a nice little climb and then around the Gateway saddle.

Gage is up the trail standing next to these nice huge cacti.  We started early to try to beat most of the heat, which was a good plan because it definitely started to get hot by the end of the hike.

Here is a picture of Tara from the backside of the Gateway saddle looking back down towards the city.

This is a great picture with the Tara, Gavin, and Gage along the way back to the trailhead.

Once again, all smiles for these guys as they hike along.  While these guys took the Gateway loop, I found a 9.5 mile loop that went around Drinkwater and McDowell peaks with about 2500 ft. of elevation gain.  It was quite breathtaking but had some serious climbs in it.  I received some funny looks on the bike side running alone and around five miles out from civilization.  I actually finished ahead of these guys and then trekked a bit back up the trail to see if they were alright.  They turned out to be just fine but a little hot and a few slightly twisted ankles.  

After our hiking adventures, we headed back to the hotel for some pool time and food with Terry and Sandra.

Spring Break Trip Day 5

It was fun for all of my boys to finally see where Grandpa T and Grandma S live in "Hotsdale."  Of course, we had rehearsed well ahead of time that the boys were to touch NOTHING in their beautiful home and "just look."  (Yes, I'm aware that I make it sound like they're still toddlers, but it's my dad and his "museum house" we're talking about here.)

The boys had heard me talk about the lemons in Grandpa T's backyard many times and had seen pictures of the awesome not-so-little hummingbirds that frequent the tree, but I think it was much more fun for them to see these things in person!  They even had a chance to use the lemon grabber themselves to get a few down.

Well done, little men! We enjoyed taking a bag of lemons home with us and using them in water and cooking for the next several weeks.  Man, I LOVE lemons!!!  Thanks, Dad :)

We enjoyed the hotel swimming pool for some late afternoon fun.  Our boys can get behind a pool just about anywhere and at any time.  I have such fun memories from my childhood when most of our hotel decisions were made based on the quality, size and warmth of the pool.  

Spring Break Trip Day 4

After coming down from a night in Flagstaff, our main goal for the day was to get in some awesome hiking on the way down to Scottsdale later that evening.  We quickly settled on Soldiers Pass Trail.  It is described as a moderate hike with beautiful views and it did not disappoint!  The views from where we parked we already amazing.

As you can see the kids were quite happy to be out on the trails and free to explore.  The red dirt was amazing and things were warm and dry. 

The hike featured a couple different interesting things to look at.  First, though not pictured, was something called Devil's Sinkhole that was up from the trailhead about a quarter of a mile.  It was a sinkhole the size of a large house that some rocks had fallen down into but was otherwise less impressive than anticipated.  One funny footnote was that there apparently is some sort of jeep tour that drives people up to the sinkhole to look at.  I am thinking the short distance is probably better walked than driven.

Second up on the trail was the "Seven Sacred Pools".  The kids got quite a kick out of these pools as you can see above in the picture.  During the rainy months these pools naturally flow together, but when we were there they simply had water in each of the pools.

After visiting the pools, we continued up a few miles to the top of Brins Mesa which offered pretty amazing views of the valley below.  The kids took a few breaks but did great on the hike that turned out to be close to six miles well we finished the full circle.

Here is another picture from the back side of the hike.  I love these amazing colors and landscapes in this area.  Apparently many others do as well, because it's super pricey to live in this area.  After the hike and some Chipotle burritos in town to refuel us, we headed down further south to Scottsdale to meet Tara's Dad and Sandra for a few days.

Spring Break Trip Day 3 - Part 4

After a morning at Lower Antelope Canyon, we quickly got on the road toward the Grand Canyon.  This was about a 2 hour drive down to the South Rim, but also offered amazing views along the way.  We were pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a total zoo and the Canyon.  There were definitely a lot of people but it was quite manageable as we drove into the park.  Our first stop was at this watchtower just inside the entrance of the park.  The kids were quite excited to hustle over to see the amazing views.

Temperatures in the mid to upper 60s made for a comfortable time, but there was still quite a bit of moisture from late spring snow melt keeping the trails a bit muddy.  Here is one of the overlooks beyond the watchtower.  It was quite breathtaking!

Unfortunately, with the questionable nature of the trail conditions and the overflowing energy of our two sons, we decided not to take one of the treacherous hikes down the face of the canyon wall and into the Grand Canyon itself.  We had actually heard that two or three people had died in the park the same week we were here trying to take selfies past the fenced areas.  This kept me quite on edge, though the kids didn't seem to understand why it was such a big deal.

Here is another picture of the canyon looking West.  You can see some of the late snow fall still in the Northern facing walls.  After an hour or two walking along the Rim trail, we packed it up and made the trip down to Flagstaff, AZ for the night.

Spring Break Trip Day 3 - Part 3

Here are the last of the Lower Antelope Canyon pictures.  One more family shot against the red sandstone walls:

This opening was supposed to look like a sea horse if you use some imagination looking upwards.

Lastly, after exiting the canyon, you can see what the top of it looks like.  Hard to imagine that there's almost a 60-80 foot drop off through that little crack next to Gage.  I would highly recommend taking a tour of this place if you are anywhere near the area.  Ken's was great and it sounds like mid to late morning is the optimal time to go through the canyon both due to temperature and the angle of the sun lighting up the walls.

Spring Break Trip Day 3 - Part 2

Here are more of the canyon as we went through:

Our tour guide was a member of the Navajo Nation and had recently joined the tour company after working for a construction company that helped work on some of the buildings.  He took the following picture, but was generally under strict instructions not to take any non-people pictures for people.  He got around this be helping us understand what might be something that would be a good picture which was very helpful.

It was hard to believe that all these oranges and reds were naturally occurring, but with a little bit of light the whole place lights up.

Here is one of the boys in a time of general mutual amazement as they look up at the views.

We were even able to grab a quick shot of Tara and I with some perspective as to how tall these walls were.

Spring Break Trip Day 3 - Part 1

The next morning, I woke up early and snuck out in search of a running track for a quick set of intervals before everyone else got up.  We had noticed the night before that there was a really nice track at the one high school in town, but it seemed like it was on lock down protocol with chains and locks throughout the complex.  I had a secondary plan to run over to a nearby middle school which looked like it had something resembling a track per Google Maps.  Unfortunately, about 12 steps into the run I rolled my ankle!  I limped through a slow jog over to this school, which does in fact have an actual track to run on but I could only made it about a quarter of a lap into my first interval to realize that my ankle was fairly wrecked and no intervals would be happening today.  This was also not a great prospect given the fact that we wanted to do a bunch of walking and hiking in the coming days near the Grand Canyon and Sedona. 

I slowly limped home and after some ice things got a bit better, but certainly not ideal.  This was especially important because this morning we arranged for a tour at what turned out to be one of the major highlights of the trip: Lower Antelope Canyon.  This canyon is located a few minutes outside of Page, AZ and there are quite a few tour companies in the area that offer these sorts of tours.  We went with the tried and trusted Ken's Canyon Tours.  From the parking area, there is about a 5-10 minute walk down some very steep stairs into the canyon floor and then you start winding your way through these amazing views.  Above is right near the start with Tara and Gavin.

The tour lasted about an hour and we took several hundred pictures.  Here is a sampling of some of the better ones.

These pictures are mostly looking vertically up toward the top of the slot canyon.

Occasionally, there would also be some time to pose around a corner before one of the other tour members were in the background.

Spring Break Trip Day 2 - Part 4

After checking in at the hotel, we ventured out for an early Mexican food dinner and then took the scenic way home by the dam at the mouth of Lake Powell.  This is actually a fairly impressive structure and holds back an enormous amount of water.

You can't walk out across the dam, but you can walk across this bridge that takes you over the river below.  It was fairly impressive but also scary as the bridge was moving quite a bit as cars drove over it next to us.  This was quite the day so we turned in as night fell for some much needed sleep.

Spring Break Trip Day 2 - Part 3

After almost three hours, we finally ended up near Page.  We decided that we would swing by a place called Horseshoe Bend before heading into town.  I had read that this was on the top-10 list of things to do while visiting the area.  It turns out that you can't actually park at the bend anymore, but you can park at this lot about a mile and a half away and pay a bus to take you there.  In the end, we decided it was worth it and got dropped off for the 10-15 minute hike from the drop off spot to the bend. 

Here are Gavin and Gage admiring some of the nice Cairn work that previous visitors had set up.  They scrounged around for a few rocks and even made one or two of their own.  The rocks and sand, as you can clearly see, are quite red in this area which makes for a pretty landscape.

Finally, we arrived and the Horseshoe Bend and it was impressive!  Red stone cliffs with beautiful blue water below and some nice green shrubs and plants down below near the river.  If you look closely, you can actually see some small houses at the bottom, which gives you a better understanding of how huge the drop off is.

Thankfully, a portion of this overlook had fencing which made me feel a little better if even for just a minute.  Here we are as a family in front of the bend.

However, as you can see there is a super large portion of the area that has no fencing and people were trying to find the most exposed places to take a selfie from.  In the picture above, Tara is actually in the foreground with her typical arms up in the air pose.  I followed the boys up on this adjacent rocky outcropping which overlooked the canyon wall back from the main trail.

Here are the boy up top on this larger rock.  They were on an immediate lizard hunt and found quite a few, though not many seemed to want to be held by young boys.  After spending an hour or so in the area, we headed back to the bus and ultimately to our car where we drove to the hotel for the night.

Spring Break Trip Day 2 - Part 2

After continuing further down the road, you end up at Cliff Palace.  This is the largest of all structures in Mesa Verde and is quite impressive.  There was a five mile round trip hike that would take you to the ledge right above the Palace, but we decided to look at it from across the canyon.

One last stop in the park was at the Sun Temple.  It is kind of a unique structure as compared to the other cliff dwellings.  It has double lined walls and sits out in the open with a few walkways and circular portions of it.  This picture above is looking through one of the windows down a hallway.  After concluding the Mesa Verde loop, we angled toward the Four Corners National Monument.

This monument is not actually super impressive, but does check the bucket list items at least.  Here is Gage with his arms and legs each in a different state.  Tara and Gavin opted for a less touristy pose and are just upright.  The monument is really quite small, though much improved since Tara and I visited the place almost 15 years ago.  Actually, if I remember correctly, we never ended up going in but rather drove by as they wanted to charge us just to park and walk over to this spot.  At least now they have a nice paved central area with stations for artisans to sell crafts.  Some much needed bathroom improvements were also under construction.

After our wallets were $20 dollars lighter from the Four Corners excursion, we were off to head west to Page, Arizona where we would spend night number two.  Along the way, we saw many amazing land features and rocky outcroppings.  This is one of dozens that were certainly amazing to look at.

Spring Break Trip Day 2 - Part 1

After breakfast at the Ranch, we drove about 30 minutes to Mesa Verde. This is the new visitors center near the entrance of the park. They had wax Native Americans inside and models of the park grounds.  Due to the cold winter, I was unsure how much of the trail system and roads would be open inside of the park, but we were pleasantly surprised that most of it was open.  Unfortunately, from the entrance gates, it is another almost 30 minute drive back through a windy road to the first portion where you start to see some of the ruins of Mesa Verde.

However, it is worth the drive!  How cool is this with Gavin and Gage in front of the Spruce Tree House ruins.  Tara and I remember being able to go on a tour that takes you into the Cliff Dwelling, but it seems as though this is more of a summer endeavor rather than a late winter/early spring activity.

Here is everyone from a different angle looking across at the same ruins.

A few minutes up the road is this place called the Pit House.  It was one of the earliest ruins that was built somewhere around 5-600 A.D.  It is more or less a round pit dug a few feet into the earth that would have had a wood roof covering it.  In the center, there was a small fire pit that helped to date the landmark.

A few more minutes down the road is Square Tour House.  We parked and this is about a five minute walk down a wiggly path.  This structure is almost 95% original, with a bit of it restored and has the tallest structure that was built at almost 85 feet or four stories tall.