This morning we got up at 5am to catch our hot air balloon ride to watch the sunrise over Sedona. Our pilot picked us up with his balloon in tow (deflated, of course), and we drove to the takeoff point. Sitting at the takeoff point, we met up with other pilots and their balloons and passengers, and the pilots were all watching the weather and sending up helium balloons to check the wind. After waiting about a half hour, the pilots decided the wind was in the wrong direction and there was a thunderstorm that would make flying too dangerous, so they canceled the flight. :(
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| Hot air balloon and basket. This is the closest we got to it. :( |
Disappointed, we went to the Coffee Pot Cafe (named for the rock formation nearby, not for the beverage) and had breakfast. Then after a quick nap in our motel room, we headed out of Sedona to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The drive north out of Sedona through Oak Creek Canyon was really beautiful, probably the most scenic of our drives so far.
After about a three hour drive, we arrived at the Grand Canyon. We had lunch in the cafeteria of one of the local resorts, then went to Grand Canyon Visitor's Center to park. Right next to the visitor's center is Mather Point, one of the many scenic viewpoints to look over the rim into the canyon, and this is where Gavin got his first site of the Grand Canyon (I have already been there). We walked the Rim Trail (more sidewalk than trail...) to the next viewpoint (Yavapai), stopping to take some pictures of me getting a bit closer to the rim than was comfortable. :)
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| Gavin's first view of the Grand Canyon! |
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| I am tiny! (and on a scary ledge! :) ) |
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| Yet another obligatory yoga photo. :) |
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| Another ledge on the Rim Trail. |
We walked back to the visitor's center to catch a shuttle to the Hermit's Rest transfer point, then intended to catch a different shuttle to go farther west along the rim to some more viewpoints, but right as we arrived at the transfer station, it started thunderstorming and pouring rain, when it had been sunny and warm only a few minutes prior! Rather than shuttling us farther in, the shuttles were all evacuating people out of the area where we wanted to go! So two times in one day, Arizona's weather messed up our plans. :)
Since we couldn't go west on the rim, we left the Grand Canyon, driving up toward Lake Powell, our next destination. The road to Lake Powell follows the Grand Canyon on its east side, so we got plenty of other views to stop along the way. Our favorite of those was Desert View point, which had a watchtower to climb and see even farther across the canyon, and we also finally had a clear view of the Colorado river at the bottom of the canyon. I also stopped at a little Native American stand selling jewelry and pottery and bought a simple turquoise necklace.
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| View from (we think) the Lipan viewpoint. Viewpoints on the east side of the canyon didn't have signs... |
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| Rays through the clouds... |
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| Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, viewed from the Desert View lookout point. |
As we have done for the rest of the trip thus far, we looked up places to stay in Page, AZ (the landing point for Lake Powell) and I started calling around. I quickly discovered that everything was full, except a few $300 and up Best Westerns, which we definitely were not interested in. Finally after calling around and lots of internet searching, the owner of one of the motels mentioned he had a room in a shared house that he would rent to us. We were a bit dubious about sharing a house with strangers, but then the owner Jake showed us his BRAND NEW house, in which we got the master bedroom and bathroom, complete with a walk in shower, a huge tub, a walk in closet that was practically the size of another bedroom, plus we got to do laundry for free! :)
After briefly settling in, we went to dinner at a local Thai restaurant, got some groceries to cook breakfast, then went to bed.
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