Running Away from Winter

Several months ago we were notified that Justin is not allowed to accumulate more than a few days leave at a time, and he has exceeded the limit.  We decided to take a vacation to Florida to go camping in the Everglades and drive out to Key West.  We were so excited about this, but something about the trip didn't seem quite right.  I guess we just weren't ready to let go of the idea though, so we switched gears a little and decided to road trip to Florida.  We started madly researching everything we could about Florida in the winter.  We had all kinds of visions of ourselves hanging out on a beach in Key West, snorkeling with manatees, snapping photos of alligators, and cruising across the USA exploring anything and everything that caught our fancy along the way.  Justin was in charge of selecting the route.  After considerable deliberation we decided to roll the dice a little and we booked our first hotel, a non-refundable room, booked through Priceline, at a 3-star hotel in Williams, AZ for a mere $40.  Day one of our adventure was planned.  We went to bed that night and I laid there wide awake for a long time trying to ignore that pit in the bottom of my stomach that was telling me that I needed to pull the plug on this little family vacation to Florida.  I hated doing it, and was sorely disappointed to scratch all the plans, but scratch them we did, and I don't even know why, and probably never will.

The holiday season for us was rather hectic, and served as something of a distraction to our ill-fated vacation plans.  We made multiple trips up and back to Boise, Salt Lake, Logan and Orem for various festivities and family functions.  The finale to our holidays was spending a few days in Phoenix with Uncle David while Justin and his brother Steven attended the Fiesta Bowl to watch Boise State play.

When the holidays were finally over, and things started to return to "normal" we were reminded of a hotel room we had bought near the Grand Canyon on January 15th.  We talked it over, and finally decided that there was no sense in not using what we had already paid for, so we decided to plan a vacation to Arizona over the long weekend.  We reserved a rental car, and then busied ourselves reading up on all the things there are to see and do in Arizona in the winter.  We had decided that we wanted to see a few overlooks of the Grand Canyon and then continue on to the Petrified Forest National Park a couple of hours away.  That's really all that we had agreed on doing.

Wednesday night I got out a few sets of underwear and some socks to pack, and then got interrupted.  Justin came in the bedroom, saw my things sitting on the edge of the bed, assumed I hadn't put my laundry away, and thoughtfully put them back in the drawers for me.  That was the closest either one of us came to doing any prior packing for our Arizona excursion.  The next morning we were still undecided on whether or not we were going to camp in Southern Arizona.  That was Justin's idea, so he had upgraded the rental car to a small SUV in order to accommodate our camping equipment.  In the midst of some packing that should have probably been more frenzied than it was, we paused to make a second hotel reservation out near the Petrified Forest National Park, so at least we had 2 nights of lodging determined for our 5 day trip.  Justin placed the last of the camping equipment in the car, and I came out to the parking lot with Vivian just as the car "locked itself" with the keys inside.  After spending several days with this car I feel confident in asserting that this car does not automatically just lock itself, but this is what was communicated to me as I stood there with Vivian and observed my husband fly into something of a rage over the incident.  I handed him my phone, told him we'd be back upstairs in the apartment and to let us know when AAA had arrived to unlock the door.  For the record, they are super fast about getting someone out there to assist, and all is well that ends well.

We left around 2pm.  The drive was relatively uneventful, other than the fact that driving through the Kaibab National Forest in the middle of a winter night was an eerie experience because of how isolated you feel.  We drove through the dark mountains for miles never passing another car, and were relieved when that part of the trip was behind us.  We finally arrived in Williams, AZ a few minutes before 11, and discovered the town to be much bigger than we had anticipated.  We had not bothered to look up directions to our hotel, assuming that it would be easy to spot in a small town.  We drove around for 20 minutes or so before I spotted a McDonald's a few blocks away and suggested to Justin that we make our way there, and use their free wi-fi to look up the address online.  Fortuitously our hotel happened to be across the street from the McDonald's, so we were spared the hassle of trying to look it up.  Unfortunately, we decided to check-in first, and then report back to the McDonald's for dinner, since it appeared to be the only establishment in town that was still open at that hour.  We were wrong, it closed at 11.  We had to settle for some sandwiches that Justin had hastily prepared before we left.  He had hoped to save them for when we were camping.  He had made four, we ate two of them.

The next morning we woke up late and made our way out to the visitor's center where we watched an IMAX film that has convinced me that I would someday like to go on a guided rafting excursion through the Grand Canyon.  Next we went to the Canyon, and to be honest, it was underwhelming.  I expected something more spectacular.  I'm not sure in what way I wanted it to be even more spectacular, because it is beautiful, and enormous, but I suppose I just simply felt that it had been over hyped.   All the same, after having a heated little debate in the parking lot about where to go for lunch, we elected to eat our last set of camping sandwiches and then visited a few overlooks.

My people on the rim of the Grand Canyon

We were rushing because we wanted to go see some Indian ruins called Montezuma's Castle, a couple of hours away.   We drove all the way there, they closed 20 minutes before we arrived.  We drove all the way back, and then an additional couple more hours out to Holbrook, AZ, had dinner, and checked into our hotel.

For the second day in a row, Vivian napped in the car all day, and was ready to go at an absurd hour the next morning.  The upside is that it got us out the door earlier the second morning, and we took our time doing a few short hikes, that were more like walks, in the Petrified Forest National Park.

Vivian clutching a little chunk of petrified wood.  We did put it back.

For some reason I had believed in all earnestness that it would be difficult to actually find the petrified wood that is allegedly everywhere in that park.  It turns out that not only is the terrain of the park quite picturesque, but the entire park is littered with the petrified wood.  It's everywhere you look.  I've never been anywhere quite like it.  The rocks/wood are beautiful, and surreal looking, and I was completely taken off guard by the abundance and appeal of these artifacts.

So those rocks all over in the background...they're not rocks.  I mean, they are rocks, but they're petrified pieces of wood, which are technically rocks now.

She loves any day that she gets to spend the whole day with Dad.

After that we returned to Holbrook for lunch and on the drive there discussed our next move.  I was exhausted from two days of early morning wake ups with Vivian, and was somewhat inclined to call it and go home at that point.  However, Justin was really set on camping, and had read some rave reviews about the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  The only thing we agreed on at that point is that the name Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is way too long.  I knew that once we were there I would be happy that I let myself be dragged along for the experience, so I relented and we determined to head south for the warmer weather.

This is a place we stopped along the way called Becker Butte Lookout.  We thought it was better scenery than anything we saw in the Grand Canyon.

We knew the drive to Organ Pipe Cactus was going to be a long one so we left immediately after lunch, and the only stop we made along the way was at that lookout place in the picture above and a few short breaks for Vivian to eat.  We drove for hours, and finally Vivian became inconsolable in her car seat.  For whatever reason she hadn't napped at all that day, and was very unhappy about the situation.  We weren't anywhere near a campground and were nearing Phoenix, but still two hours out from our final destination.  It was late and as soon as Justin saw a sign on the freeway for a KOA he pulled off and headed there.  Sleep deprivation had really set in for me as well at that point, and I was probably even less pleasant company than Vivian.  I think our fellow campers probably felt kind of bad for Justin.  The next morning, I was nicer, and life seemed better.  Before we left we secured ourselves a KOA directory, since this is the second time we've been saved by one when things weren't working out as planned.

We continued our driving south.  Really far south.  The Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument borders Mexico.  As we pulled into the town just outside of the monument, Ajo, AZ we started to question the wisdom of this trip.  First of all, the area was not really that pretty, but even more worrisome were the barred windows on every establishment in town and the bullet holes in the buildings of the town square, where we stopped for lunch.  The weather however was perfect.  It was a sunny 80 degree day outside.  

Vivian was mesmerized with the flag in the town square.

We chatted with some people at the cafe where we had lunch who had been out to the monument the previous day.  They loved it, and said they had never felt unsafe while there.  We felt reassured, but decided to report straight to the visitor's center to speak to a ranger and get an honest opinion about the wisdom of camping there with a baby.  The first ranger was a woman who was very nice and encouraging, the second ranger was a kind of passively rude Hispanic man.  He acted like we were idiots for asking the question, despite the fact that there is a memorial outside the visitor's center for a park ranger who was killed in the monument by the cartel several years ago.  We essentially tried our best to just ignore the man, the woman reassured us that there had never been an incident with a tourist in the park.  So we secured ourselves a campsite.

It was Sunday, so we had decided not to do anything too ambitious on the Sabbath.  We took a 21-mile scenic drive through the monument.  The conditions of the road left a lot to be desired, but it was a one-way road, and we had to go so slow that Justin pulled Vivian out of her carseat and let her sit on his lap in the front.  She loved it.  The park was astonishingly beautiful, more than we had anticipated, or initially realized.  Our photos will never do this place justice.

One of the best stretches of road

My people with an Organ Pipe Cactus.

Vivian and I with a Saguaro Cactus.

After that we went on a stroll called the Desert View.

Looking back at the campground

We returned to our campsite in time for one of the best sunsets I've ever seen.  We promised ourselves that some day we will be back to spend more than a day there.  We were very sorry to leave and start the long drive home Monday morning.  We broke up the long day in the car with a visit back to Montezuma's Castle.  This time they were open. 

It was not the most exciting thing I've ever seen, but gave us a nice break from the driving.  We stopped again at the Navajo Bridge that's somewhere out near the Utah border. 

Our baby is astonishingly patient with all of our driving.

We pulled over again to take a few pictures of the sunset against the Vermillion Cliffs.  Again, our pictures are sadly inadequate. 

We made it home around midnight, and as soon as I set foot out of the car I immediately wished that I could somehow transport myself back to the warmth of Southern Arizona.  I love the desert, and I love it even more when it's offering me a break from Utah's cold winter weather.