A Grand Father's Day!

***Note: This entry was written on Sunday, June 20, but I couldn't post it because there wasn't any Wi-Fi available at our hotel.***

As we watched the end of the US Open golf tournament this evening while awaiting our (very expensive) pizza at the Grand Canyon, one of the commentators said, "I can't think of a better way to spend Father's Day than watching your son win the US Open." Well, we can! It's being with your kids, spending a really great family time together, and visiting two beautiful National Parks. The Professor has said this is the best Father's Day he's ever had.

We left Albuquerque just after 8 this morning (love this "losing time" thing; it won't be so much fun on the return trip). On a whim, we decided, after seeing the sign, to drive through Painted Desert National Park/Petrified Forest. We're SO glad we did. While the kids were less than thrilled that we made them sit through the 20 minute film about the area, they quickly got into it as we stopped at the first lookout (see pics of boys taking photos). It's amazing to think that if we'd blown through on I-40, we wouldn't have seen 95% of what we saw on that 28 mile drive, just off the freeway. I remember that my mom used to have a piece of polished petrified wood, and she was at the forefront of my mind today as we drove through and saw the big chunks of petrified logs littering the desert.

After exiting the park onto Hwy 180 (ironically the same national route that took us into and out of Breckenridge, TX), we took a little detour through one of the historic Rout 66 towns. We of course were reminded of Grandma and Grandpa Wessel's cross country trip on Route 66. We even saw the tee pees that they stayed in!! As we were driving out, we were also thinking about Lightning McQueen (of the Disney movie, Cars, fame, for those of you who have kids old enough not to have seen it), and about our little, now-4 year-old friend that the Skipper used to babysit when we lived in DC. This particular boy had a real obsession with Cars, and they watched it COUNTLESS times together. The road out of the town was very smooth--Lightning did a great job of fixing it!!

After stopping a bit later for some afternoon refreshment at Sonic, we made our way to one of the Professor's favorite places: the Grand Canyon. He concedes that the area has certainly changed since he and his brother hiked it almost 17 years ago (the summer we were married). The kids were suitably impressed with the views. After the cursory few moments at the rim, we checked into our hotel (we were even "upgraded"--we now have an air-conditioned room, not that we really need it) and went for our pizza dinner. After dinner, we return to the rim to watch a beautiful sunset. We walked a bit down the Bright Angel Trail for some nice photo ops, and of course some reminiscing on the part of the Professor. I really don't think the day could have gone much better.

So now, once again, we're all quite tired (especially after hiking around a bit at the higher elevation--whew!!). We forgot that Arizona doesn't "do" Daylight Savings, so we're now 3 hours
behind our normal time. The Professor and I may be crashing while the kids run amok about the canyon, and we may not know any better!

So tomorrow we head out for our drive to Zion National Park in Utah (though I don't think it will take much persuading to get everyone back out the the rim for one last peek at the canyon before we depart). We'll have 2 days there, so we'll have some time to get out and explore a bit more.

Happy Fathers Day to all you dads out there. We love you!