This is a VERY famous view. Read on about Monument Valley.
After leaving the Grand Canyon on the morning of July 4th, we set forth on an approximately 8-hour drive to Moab, Utah. We chose the route that took us through Monument Valley, which is just north of the Utah/Arizona border near U.S. Highway 163. The drive is gorgeous, taking us through numerous ecosystems and significant terrain changes. More »
Timmy performed all the tasks to earn Junior Ranger. He then had to pledge to respect nature and the environment before earning his Junior Ranger badge. We did this on our way out of the park on our last day.
Timmy earned his first National Park Service Junior Ranger badge while we were at the Grand Canyon. He was required to complete several age-appropriate activities in a workbook (which includes things like taking observations, coloring pictures, answering questions, and writing a poem about the park), attend an age-appropriate Ranger-led program, and then take a pledge to be respectful and protect the things the National Park Service finds important: nature, the environment, and animal life. More »
Nothing like it in the world…everybody needs to see the beauty of a Grand Canyon sunset.
I am resuming my summer travels writing…although we’re now nearly 6 months departed from this trip. I need need need to get these memories written down so I don’t forget everything.
I have a couple weeks until my next block of work begins at the Air Force Academy, so I figured I’d use this time to continue catching up. I had arranged my photo albums based on my blog posts, so it’s a little less chaotic than it might have been with a huge clump of photos.
This post is about the stunning Grand Canyon sunset. There are two things every visitor needs to do: hike down below the rim and see a sunset. The amazing colors in the geology and sky are worth the effort. Take a good camera, you’ll want to have fun with the settings to try to capture the colors. More »
My boys on the ski lift!
Earlier this month our family took advantage of a local Boy Scouting promotion called “Scout Family Day” at Copper Mountain Resort. A day lift ticket, breakfast, and lunch all for $32 per person!
I had to clarify that this is “Copper” and not “Cooper” because I wrote about Ski Cooper last season. Ironically, the two resorts are very close to each other. More »
I’ve had these for a couple months, sorry it took so long to post these. Enjoy!
Jacob took up cello at his new middle school. It’s been a joy listening to him practice: the 4 years of piano has helped him get a leg up on reading bass clef and understanding things like tempo, dynamics, and rhythm. Here he is playing at his winter concert on November 11th.
Ranger has made great progress integrating with our family. After a couple weeks of separation anxiety issues, we’ve found a great system of crating time with two days of “Doggie Day Care” per week does the trick keeping him happy and healthy. In the picture above he’s lounging on our brand new deck that just finished last weekend: the original deck was rotting and becoming dangerous to use.
We’ve had several medical issues with Ranger; so much so that we were pondering whether it was the right decision to keep him. First of all he was seemingly eating everything in sight. One day, he got into the kitchen trash can, and within a few hours he was acting very lethargic: not eating or drinking. That resulted in a trip to the veterinary ER to get his GI system X-rayed to rule out any stomach or intestinal blockages. Then a couple weeks later Ranger sliced his paw DEEPLY on some metal landscape edging in our backyard and he needed several stitches. That required the “cone of shame” for several days. More »
Globallighting.com
Okay, so I’m not an old master. But I have been scarce.
In the middle of my series of posts about our awesome summer vacation, I dropped off the face of the earth. I predict it was around the time of the first midterm I had to give, and from then on out, I’ve been crazy busy at work, thus coming home exhausted. More »
One of my favorite photos ever. My boys enjoying America’s beauty.
On the 2nd full day of our Grand Canyon trip, we decided to get an early start and hit the Bright Angel Trail.
The Bright Angel Trail originates at the heart of the “touristy” part of the South Rim Grand Canyon park. It’s a well-maintained trail, in part because this is the trail that the mules use for those tours. Because of the accessibility, it’s definitely more crowded than the remote Hermit’s Trail. More »
Hermit’s Rest is on the far western end of the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.
We had made it clear to the boys that we would be hiking at least part of our two days at the Grand Canyon. I saw a list of family-friendly activities in the park summer guide. We chose the Junior Ranger Family Adventure Program, in which families can descend down into the canyon via the challenging Hermit’s Trail. Dave and I wanted to get some exercise, and we were confident our kids could handle it.
Getting to Hermit’s Rest, where the program began, was a task in itself. We drove to the Grand Canyon Village part of the park, where we then caught a bus that took us on the 45 minute drive to the western end of the park. It was a gorgeous drive with several views of the canyon to enjoy. More »
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