Travels to the Grand Canyon

 

Tiffany and I are currently sitting in a coffee shop in Flagstaff, AZ, for the first time, as the smelliest people in such a a place.  5 days without a shower after mass amounts of sweating and a 6 mile hike in the grand canyon has left us a little self conscious as we are tightly packed amongst people in the very busy Macys Cafe.

Our trip so far as been Manhattan, KS --> OKC --> Santa Fe --> Farmington --> Grand Canyon --> Flagstaff.

It was great to see the Schwartz's and their new son Jensen, as well as Annie Stuckey in Manhattan.  Then, we had a family gathering in OKC, in which it was awesome great to see family I haven't seen in awhile.

Santa Fe was a wonderful little town in the mountains.  After arriving, we found a bench to make a little picnic and unwind a bit.  Not long, a couple saw us and our van and invited us to dinner at a beautiful Santa Fe home.  It was my jar of JIF peanut butter that made them unable to NOT invite us to dinner.  So off we went for a wonderful meal.  We stayed up and talked to them about all the travels they have taken all over the world.  After sleeping in their driveway, we got up for an early morning bike ride with them to the mountains!  The air at 7200ft was not friendly to us, but we made it!  We were blessed to have this happen during our short time their, and as one of my buddies put it, we felt we had favor here.

We left midday from Santa Fe, planning to stay the night in Farmington, hoping the next day to go to the four corners, valley of the gods, monument valley and the Grand Canyon all in one day.  Things were on course until, literally as we made the turn into valley of the gods, a pulley broke, undoing our serpentine belt.  Amazingly enough, I put in a call to AAA at 12:15pm and by 3:45pm we were back on the road again even though the tow was an hour away.  When we got back to the entrance of valley of the gods (17 miles of scenic, but very rugged terrain) we decided not to go in.  We learned from our tow truck driver that our van probably wouldn't have made it given the roads and recent rains and we could have found ourself in big trouble.  So, as much as we can, we saw our breaking down when we did as a blessing in disguise and decided not to push our luck.  So, we went on our way, through monument valley (and past mile marker 13 where Forrest Gump quit running) and made it to the Grand Canyon just in time for sunset!  The next day we did a 6 hour hike in 4 hours and it destroyed us on the way back up . . . toughest hike I've been on.  We saw about all we needed to see there, so to Flagstaff to pass the night and are excited for the next place on our journey.