Memorable Birthday Trip!

On Wednesday, I had a very memorable birthday! Jill and I made plans to go to the Grand Canyon, and go back home again via Sedona and it's red rock formations. It was a fun day! As you can imagine, I have a ton of pictures, so I decided to show them to you in slide shows, but here are a couple of teasers (and in case the slide show pictures are smaller than I'd like!) It was a great way to spend my birthday and I'm so glad that Jill was able to be here for a few days! I've had a fun couple days since then as well, and then have been back to work, so am finally getting these pictures uploaded for you!


As a big fan of national parks, it was REALLY fun to get a stamp from the GRAND CANYON on my BIRTHDAY!!! Whoo, who!!

We left for the Grand Canyon on Wednesday morning just after rush hour. It's about a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive, so we got there right around noon. It had actually snowed in Flagstaff the day before (about a foot!) so we saw lots of snow around. I thought it looked cool (literally! -after our 90 degree days!) but since Jill is from MN I think she thought it was crazy to come to Arizona and see snow! Luckily it was mostly melted in the park itself.

It was REALLY fun to watch Jill experience the Grand Canyon for the first time! When I get to take someone to a place I enjoy, and see it through their eyes for the first time -well, that's pretty fun! We saw our first glimpse from Mather Point, then spent a little time in the Visitor's Center and bookstore. We started heading east along Desert View Drive. When Jill asked how long we'd be at the park, I said that we could spend anywhere from 10 seconds to many hours, and that some people spend many days there. I had decided that we would drive east on Desert View Drive to get to the east end of the park and head south from there. Well, we ended up stopping at lots of points along the way and Jill agreed that 10 seconds wouldn't have been long enough! I was glad she felt that way! So many of the pictures look the same, yet at each place there was something a little different to see, and really the whole thing is pretty incredible. Here's the basic slide show of the majority of the pictures I took:

A few of you have asked if we went out on the Grand Canyon Skywalk, but since it's a couple of hundred miles away (the Grand Canyon itself is 277 miles across) from the national park entrance, we didn't drive all that way. I guess it's closer to Las Vegas than Phoenix, and is located on the Huapalai Tribe reservation. I'd like to go someday, but the park ranger that told me about it said to wait until they pave the road that gets there. Another trip!

Here are the pictures that show Jill and I having fun on my birthday, celebrating God's awesome creation. It's pretty easy to see why this is one of the 7 Wonders of the World! In some ways, it's so huge and amazing, that it almost doesn't seem real! If you've never been to it in person, I HIGHLY recommend a visit someday!

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I love black and white pictures. It was so bright on Wednesday that I wasn't sure how they'd turn out, but thought I'd at least give it a shot. Here are the ones that came out okay.

After heading all the way east out of the park, we turned south, went back through Flagstaff, and ended the day in Sedona. We got to enjoy the beautiful drive down Oak Creek Canyon and arrived with a little daylight left. This was obviously my goal so Jill could see what Sedona had to offer! We drove around and looked at the Chapel of the Holy Cross (which had closed 15 minutes before), a few of the rock formations that I remembered, and then we stopped in at one of the visitor's centers to ask advice about dinner. I knew of a great Mexican restaurant, but we decided on something else for dinner. Well, the guy at the visitors center was in exactly the right position -with being able to carry on a conversation (read: long conversation) with anyone, but he did have some great advice for dinner. He suggested going just up the hill to the airport, and eating at the restaurant at the top, which would have a great view of the sunset. We stopped at the lookout for a bit (which was PACKED with people!) and then I enjoyed a wonderful salmon dinner for my birthday! It was the perfect end to a perfect day!

THANK YOU, Jill, for coming to visit, for celebrating my birthday with me, and for the really fun day! I'm so glad you were here!