An Arizona/Utah Memorial weekend Heffelfinger Adventure style...Day 1

Happy Monday/Tuesday folks! (Hopefully you had Monday off of your day job like we did) The beauty of having Monday off of work, besides enjoying a glorious 3 day weekend, is that it's now only a 4 day week! WooHoo!

Sam and I might have cheated the system a little bit by taking Friday off of work as well...Hey, we're young, in love, and we don't have any babies only have a cute pooch to take care of. Plus, we're super blessed to live in such an awesome area, the things we saw in a 4 day period, so close to home, truly phenomenal.

So we took off out of Flagstaff Thursday night with some Panda Express, our camping gear, and Kona, and drove all the way to the gate of Grand Canyon National Park. Unfortunately we got there too late to go inside that night, so we found a little campsite for the evening and when we woke up our adventures began!

Enjoy the pictures, there's a lot of them...702 to be exact, though we won't bore you to death with all of those....just the ones that my hair looks good in :)

Ok...that's a joke too. Please excuse our unshoweredness.... we we're camping :)

Above was morning #1. Every morning of our lives includes fetch with Kona...no fetching = bad day. Then a little coffee in the JetBoil. (You'll be seeing a lot of the JetBoil - if you are an avid camper, YOU NEED THIS. It boils water in .025 seconds....yes that's an exaggeration, but it's really fast, and you can hold it in your hands.) Also please note the wooden box to the right of the truck. That, my friends, is our camping lifesaver. Sam designed and built a camp kitchen box - more pics to come - but holy cow, I won't go camping without it. 

And here folks, is why you marry a man that carries an axe...ax? Whatever. Ok, it was a little tree, but we did our good deed for the day, and spent 10 min chopping and moving the tree out of the road. What a stud! He looks good with an ax...axe. 

That road led us to this hill top - known as the BallPark by the Forest Service men and women - it's a field that sits atop of a cliff overlooking the beginning of the Grand Canyon. In the middle picture, the one with all 3 of us, you can faintly see a crack in the ground to the right of us, and that, is no small hole - that's the Colorado River.

Oh, the things that you see once you make it into the Park. Deer, desert rose, and Sam...and binoculars attached to his face. He really likes to look far away. So this picture really does him justice.

 And finally the moments you have all been waiting for: the actual Grand Canyon as viewed from the North Rim. If you decide to vacation at the Grand Canyon, please, skip the tourist attractions and only go to the North Rim. the views are 100X better, and there are no tour buses full of people. There is also a hotel, and cabins, and a wonderful restaurant that served awesome french toast.

FYI: this picture of the Canyon looks hazy...almost smoky....but that's not smog, or smoke...it's dust - it was WINDY as POO the entire weekend - which caused the sky to look hazy and yucky, not the typical clear blue that it is. 

So, here's a funny story. We spent the afternoon going to point to point, looking out over the Canyon. It was beginning to get cooler, and the evening was coming so we decided to drive outside of the National Park boundaries to camp. On our way to our destination, Sam SLAMMED on the brakes and proceeded to burst my eardrums by YELLING "BADGER!" and pointing out the window. So we jumped out of the car and chased the little devil until we cornered him in this log, where he looked at us like, neener neener neener, you can't get me! hah!! (Note: it's not recommended to chase badgers, but when you want to take a picture of something that runs away from you, it's second nature to chase it.) But in the end, we got this sweet picture.

 Ahh, the famed kitchen camp box!!

And the products of said kitchen camp box.

Camp for the night. Check out the party lights! These are solar light bulbs that Sam picked up at the Overland Expo that I talked about in the last few posts.  

And our favorite game - SkipBo! Don't know what it is?? Go to WalMart and get it, you won't be sorry. Horribly addicting. (Right, Mom?)

On the road again! Heading into Utah. Don't diss the socks - it was cold, and I had shorts on. 

Stay tuned for more pics tomorrow. I don't want to drown you all in pictures! Hope you enjoyed! 

And Happy Memorial Day - God bless our troops and everyone that has or is serving for our country.