Grand Circle Road Trip, Day 6

I know that it has been a while but I am going to finish posting about our vacation, which took place in June.

This was a very special day, I'll give you a hint: it was June 7th. We celebrated this special day by waking up in a wigwam which is a pretty awesome start to any day.

To view an album of day 6 click here.

Viola spent some time appreciating classic vehicles.

Holbrook, Az is an old route 66 town with all of the flare that one would expect from such a place.

Several of the buildings were encrusted with petrified wood which was kind of the ongoing theme of the place. We saw lots of it.

First stop: Geronimo, home of the largest entire petrified tree in the world including this whopping big chunk seen below standing up (and there are about 10 more feet of it buried in the ground).

Here we are at the Little Painted Desert County Park, very nice.
We realized that we were going to be driving close to the Meteor Crater, not a planned side trip but, we didn't want to miss anything so off we went to see the big hole. It was enormous. You couldn't even wrap your mind around how big it was. There was a 6 foot tall cut out of an astronaut in the very center that had to be viewed through binoculars. So of coarse we had to climb down into it. See Viola and I exhausted after our journey. (it's a fake)
We then attempted to take back roads through the painted desert. Bad idea. Even though we had a GPS and map quest directions we could not find some of the tiny roads that we were looking for in that desolate waste land with no water in sight. After an hour or so of wandering through the desert Three Amigos style, hungry and thirsty, we turned back and headed for the interstate. But we did see some pretty painted desert action along the way.
We crossed out of the Navajo Nation on this lovely bridge over the Colorado River. It was so hot here that it felt like you were in an oven. We walked out to the middle of the bridge briefly enjoyed the view then hurried back to our air conditioned Rav-4.
Here is a pretty rock formation that looks like a castle.
In the Marble Canyon we saw this ancient settlement of what looked like petrified smurf houses. They also make good shade for Navajo women to sell jewelery.
When we reached the Kaibab National Forest there were still patches of snow on the ground. The air was so nice and cool so we rolled down the windows to enjoy a little breeze.


We finally reached the Grand Canyon. It is so huge. I can see why they named it that.
We walked out to see some view points including Bright Angel Point. It was a little bit terrifying. On the trail below it drops off into the oblivion on both sides. Scary. Shortly after this photo was taken we decided that Viola did not need to go any further on this treacherous trail and Brian and I took turns holding her and going to the end.
The view was amazing.
A couple of people showed up with tripods to catch the sunset.

Due to our late arrival we had to take a 9:00 dinner reservation. While we waited we were able to enjoy the annual North Rim Star Party. There were lots of guys out on the porch over looking the canyon with huge telescopes that would let you have a look. I saw Saturn's rings, very cool. Then during our dinner, to our shock an amazement, Viola got tired, cranky, and fussy. Is 9:00 not an appropriate dinner time for a one year old who has been riding in the car all day? So I took Viola back to our cabin and Brian got my birthday dinner to go and brought it back to me. Sad. But it was tasty. Then we got to listen to the Japanese children in the adjoining cabin cry all night. It was lovely. To view an album of day 6 click here.