Spring Break '09

The girls and I got invited to tag along with my parents and youngest brother Taylor for spring break this year. We got a big motor home and headed out Friday afternoon. We hit a huge traffic jam in Orem and it took us about 2 hours to drive what usually takes about 40. We were a little behind schedule so we had to drive a little later than we had planned. Both the girls fell asleep before we stopped, and when we finally found a vacant parking lot to stop at Berkley woke right up. We got her back to sleep and Braelyn fell out of her bed, started crying and woke Berkley up. It was after 1:00 am before everyone got settled, and nobody was well rested the next morning. There were a lot of malfunctions with the motor home, like lights not working and fuses shorting out, but luckily my Dad is good at fixing anything, so after a stop at the Wal-mart in Page everything seemed to be going smoother. The goal for our first real day was the Grand Canyon. We stopped at this little viewpoint run by an Indian tribe. It was freezing and I hadn't brought coats but the view was amazing. I couldn't believe how steep the walls were. I was so nervous to get close to the guardrail! We stayed until our fingers were frozen and then drove into the actual park. We made another quick stop and it was even more beautiful. There were some clouds moving out of the canyon and some mist settling in. It was so majestic, I didn't think it would be that neat, but now I would really recommend seeing it at least once in your life. There were a lot of tourists, and many of them had climbed out over the guardrails, and onto the ledges and points, and it was disappointing to see their disregard for the boundaries that were set-up to preserve the area. We moved on to where we were going to meet the shuttle and as we were driving up, it started snowing. We wanted to try and wait it out, so the girls took a nap and the boys decided to hike around. They came back an hour later and said the entire canyon was fogged over, you could barely see in front of you. While we were deciding what to do it started hailing! They were huge and pelting down, and we didn't want to be stuck up at the top in a snowstorm in a 35 ft motor home so we had to head out. It was disappointing to miss but at least we caught a glimpse. We were definitely ready to head for warmer weather at that point.