The Land of the Sun

Brandon and I spent Thursday through Monday in sunny Arizona. It was a great trip, but a bit of a whirlwind. (We're saving the bulk of Brandon's vacation for Hawaii in February, so we only had a few days for him to burn.)

Thursday night we got settled into the family condo in Phoenix (it is awesome!) and then went out with Steve and Roy. We met up with some of their friends at local Mexican restaurant and noshed on Margaritas and nachos then went to Corbin's for a tasty dinner.

Friday we slept in then took advantage of Steve and Roy's cabana...aka backyard. They have a pool and hot tub, so we laid out until we were hot, got in the pool, hot tub, repeat. You get the idea.



That night we road the bus to downtown Phoenix to watch the Reds take on the Diamondbacks. Unfortunately, we lost but it was still fun to see a ballpark other than our own. I enjoyed watched the DONKEY (Adam Dunn)strike out. HA!

Here are a few photos:



Saturday we headed north to Flagstaff for a 6.7 mile hike in the Coconino National Forrest: the Bear Jaw/Abineau Loop. The trail goes to the base of the Humphrey's Peak, the highest point in Arizona. When you turn your back on the peak, you can see the Grand Canyon 90 miles away. Pretty amazing. We saw large alpine tree groves, avalanche damage and beautiful wildflowers. Here are a few pics:







That night, we stayed in Williams at the Holiday Inn so Brandon could watch the OSU game. We ate Mexican--again--at a local joint then headed to bed early.

Sunday we got up early and drove to the Grand Canyon. This was the first time we hiked down into the canyon. We didn't have a whole lot of time, so we did the six miles round trip on South Kaibab to Skeleton Point and three miles on the Bright Angel trail. Both were amazing. Next time we're definitely going to build in time to hike all the way to the canyon bottom.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the hikes:













There was a huge storm that left most of Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati without power while we were gone. Fortunately, our power was back on by the time we got back. we spent our first night back cleaning up sticks from our yard. Fortunately. our trees and roof weren't damaged.