Heading home

Today was my last day in Arizona before heading back home to finish the rest of Minnesota's winter.

All what I wanted to do was soak up the sun.  So Heidi and I basically spent the whole day sitting at the pool.  It was a beautiful day and when we got hot we went out for a little lunch at the Paradise Cafe.  It's basically Panera but every time Head visits, they go there and take a picture of them outside and send it to me - so we did the same.

After lunch, it was more pool time.  This was the busiest we ever saw the pool, there were about 15 people there.

Then at 3 it was time to come in and get ready to head home.

Now I'm sitting at my gate, getting ready to board, and as much as I'm NOT excited about returning to 20 degree weather, I am excited to see Bryan and the pups.

Last time Bryan picked me up from the airport was when I returned from Antarctica and he surprised me with our beautiful little Ella baby puppy.  Today is her 1 year adoption day. It's crazy to think that she's been in our lives for a year already.

She has no idea how hard I'm about to cuddle her. :)

Thanks Heidi for being a good host, next time I expect u to at least offer to carry my bag up to your place. :)

See ya soon Minne!

Antelope Canyon & Horseshoe Bend

Today was another fun, but long day.

We started the morning with breakfast at the hotel before checking out and making our way to our Antelope Canyon Tour.  We had a little trouble finding it at first because there really wasn't an address associated with the booking.  When we eventually got there we realized why - it was basically a parking lot with a shed off the road where we needed to go out towards the canyon.

They request that you arrive about 45 minutes early, so even with that little bit of finding where we needed to go, we still had over a half an hour wait.

It was long enough for us to determine that it's going to be a sandy ride out to the canyon. And we were right.

Luckily we had a beautiful day and even with our full truck of people (14 + our guide), we were at the front of all the trucks going out there.

Our guide was a little pushy, which probably frustrated me the most.  She pretty much took everyone's cameras and phones to "show us" how to take the good pictures we wanted in the canyon.  She probably took my camera the most because she told the rest of the group that mine was the best equipment (thanks again Bryan).  At one point when I was in my settings and about to change the iso she took my camera and said I wasn't doing it right and when I said "I know, I was just going to adjust my iso" she interrupted me and said that I sound like her students, and that no - I didn't know.

I about lost it.

Regardless of the issue with our guide, I did enjoy the canyon.  Antelope Canyon is the most visited and photographed slot canyon in the American Southwest. We only visited the upper canyon.  It was formed over hundreds of years of water running through sandstone.  It's still a sacred site for the Navajo.  The canyon walls are roughly 120 feet high, it's really impressive.

It was only about an hour long tour, and on our way out we were so happy that we had done an early tour.  There were sooooo many people in it.  We didn't have to deal with any people in our way for pictures, but they sure did.

After the tour we drove just a short bit to the Horseshoe Bend scenic overlook.

There is just a short trail to get there, and it will give you an impressive view of the Colorado River as it bends back on itself.  It's about 1,000 feet high of sandstone down to the river and about a 270 degree bend.

The view is amazing and totally worth the long drive we took to get up there.  It looked like the river was a bit low but there were still boats cruising around it.

The height doesn't bother me, but I am surprised that the overlook is completely open - no guard rails or anything.  It seems like everything now has something put there to keep people safe.

The hike back up the sandy path wasn't that difficult, but it was starting to get quite hot out.

We stopped for some snacks and then made our way back south. 

We stopped in Flagstaff for a late lunch at Jack In The Box (I said I only wanted to eat at places we don't have in Minnesota) and then finished the trip home.

We got back a little after 5pm and then went to see the movie Divergent. 

I thought it was good, but I feel less excited about the future movies because of how disappointed I was with the final book. But I did like how they did the first one, and there were a few differences from the book. Nothing that really changed the plot line, but things that were just shortened or left out.  

Now, after a long day, we're going to relax for a bit - but I'll probably be sleeping before I know it.

Sedona and the Grand Canyon

This morning Heidi, Beau, and I left early to make our way north to Sedona.

We left around 5 am to make it there early for our 8 am Pink Jeep Tour. I slept the entire way to Sedona.

We got out of the car and it was pretty cool outside, so we put on an extra layer and grabbed a coffee before we left.

The Pink Jeep Tour was a lot of fun. We had a great guide and she was really knowledgeable about the area.  The views were spectacular and as it got a little later we could shed the extra hoodie and enjoy the warmth.

We had a little time after we finished to shop before driving up to the Grand Canyon.  We stopped in Williams for lunch, right on Route 66. They were the last town that was bypassed when the highway went in in 1984.

We went to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and basically walked the whole side.  It was a beautiful day, and there were a lot of people there. 

I think I appreciated the Grand Canyon more this time around, compared to when I was here during our family trip back when I was in high school. 

We had a lot of fun, took a lot of pictures,  and then grabbed the shuttle to bring us back toward our car.

From the South Rim we drove further up to Page. Unfortunately we didn't know that the highway up ahead had been closed due to a landslide. So now we had to turn around and make our way back to the other Page turnoff, which was not marked as a detour. It was probably about 40 miles of backtracking, then an additional 44 miles to get to Page. But we made it.

Luckily, Heidi jumped out and checked us in and then we went to park because when we walked back to the lobby a giant tour bus had arrived and began flooding the lobby. So we could just bypass them and get right up to our room.

Now we're just ordering a pizza and we'll all likely crash quickly.

Hanging with Heidi

Sorry for the no post yesterday- I fell asleep before I could write it.

Yesterday Heidi drove me around her neighborhood and past her school.  It's a nice area and her apartment is so mich nicer than my first apartment in New Hope.

We also hung out by her pool and then went over to Westgate for some lunch outside and walked around the Tanger Outlets.

We made dinner at home and watched the movie Frozen.

Today was another fun and relaxing day.

We hungout at the pool before eating and going to the ball field.  We went to the White Sox vs. Angels spring training game at Camelback Ranch.

We had seats but ended up sitting in the grass. Still great seats and I enjoyed sitting in the sun.  A guy who graduated from our high school plays for the White Sox and we were hoping we'd be able to see him pitch. They brought him in for the last inning, so that was pretty fun to see.  His wife used to work with both Heidi and me at A&W so we found her for a quick hello too. 

After the game we stopped for some yummy frozen yogurt and eventually some Mexican for dinner.  Taking it easy tonight because we have an early day tomorrow.