So if last project was in an oven, this one was most certainly in a freezer. Very cold in Zion national park this week, after an unseasonably warm week the week before, which is just bad luck on my part if you ask me. We had snow, icicles and water freezing at camp with lows of -5 degrees. Day one was mostly devoted to travel, although the journey significantly shorter than last time to Parashant. We arrived at about 3 pm so had plenty of time to set up camp (alongside the emerald pools crew) and then head to the visitors [View Full Entry]

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So here they are.....Mr & Mrs Turner - CONGRATULATIONS! There are more professional photographs but we wanted to get something online quickly. The Cowboys and Cowgirls who work on this ranch were fabulous, they were warm and hospitable and did everything they could to make this a warm and special day....despite the snow and freezing temperatures. The ceremony was administered by a minister from Las Vegas who was flown out especially and he was a hoot. Full of character and funny stories. The Wedding took place in the Diamond Bar in front of a warm fire - it was beautiful and [View Full Entry]

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Monday, we drove over to Bryce canyon. It’s was a good 2 hrs from Cedar city, mind you we took the scenic route. Found a little Indian shop on the way into the Park, bought some cool ornaments. Once at the visitor centre we watched the movie, bought some postcards, and had lunch. As we have missed the peak season by a week, the shuttle service has now stopped. So we got to do a self guided tour. First stop was at sunset point, where we walked down the Navajo trail. What an amazing sight, after walking down the steep hillside [View Full Entry]

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We originally didn't have anything planned for today but decided we didn't want to just hang out at the resort but also didn't want to drive around and look at more of the same Red Rocks. Beautiful as they are, there are only so many pictures you can take of the same thing.....my mother may disagree with her drawer full of Florida sunset pictures collected over many years! So we looked in to what else we could do locally and found horse back riding in a State Park just down the road from the resort. We called and they were able [View Full Entry]

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Today was a very low key day. No activities planned. After breakfast we headed out for more sightseeing. We started at Bell Rock in search of a vortex ( Sedona Arizona Energy Vortexes ). After taking an unplanned hike on Bell Rock path, we were unsuccessful in our vortex hunt. Not to say there were none there, but neither of us experienced the 'energy'. We left Bell Rock and stopped at the Chapel of the Holy Cross where I lit candles for my dad and grandmother. We drove through a couple of other areas but there was [View Full Entry]

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We did our day trip to the Grand Canyon today. We left around 7:45AM and returned around 4:45PM. We watched the weather before we left and saw that the temperature was predicted to be 20-30 degrees colder than Sedona. We also saw that they were calling for rain in northern Arizona but I guess we thought (hoped!) that wouldn't pertain to us or the Grand Canyon.....we were wrong. We drove out of Sedona up through Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff and entered the Grand Canyon through the South Entrance. We saw no wildlife on our trip to the Grand Canyon but [View Full Entry]

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Our plans got updated for today. Our helicopter tour was supposed to be at 2PM but the tour company called this morning and asked if we could come at 10AM instead because the winds were supposed to pick up this afternoon and they thought we would have more enjoyable flight in the morning. I am attaching another one of Adam's edited videos from our helicopter ride. It was a short flight (15-20 minutes in the air), we saw some of what we had already seen in the hot air balloon but the helicopter covered more distance. In case you are wondering, [View Full Entry]

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Sunday was another day filled with spectacular views of Sedona. After attending the timeshare presentation on Sunday morning we headed back towards uptown Sedona with our Jeep tour voucher in hand. We had a late lunch at Ken's Creekside where we sat outside on the patio and had good food with breathtaking views. We then headed out for our Pink Jeep - Broken Arrow Trail tour. Our driver, Steve, was great. He told us his story of being a lawyer in Oregon and after visiting Sedona a couple of times just couldn't get it out of his head and walked into [View Full Entry]

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October 19, 2009 “That’s a keeper!!! Those are the words that John (the button and switch man) utters every time he takes a picture. This is what happens…Donna and I are literally wedged into the backseat…(the condition of the van at this point is the subject of a future blog) and when a photo op presents itself she’ll often ask John to hop out and snap a picture with the camera on her phone so that she can send it home. Now she sets EVERY THING up for him on the camera so that all he has to do is [View Full Entry]

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October 18, 2009 Today John dropped Bill off at The Canyon…that’s what you call it if you’re visiting and you’re really cool…The Canyon…”Meet you at the Canyon”…”We were just over at the Canyon”…”Don’t fall in The Canyon”… Bill spent the morning exploring while the rest of us slept in. John and I went to the National Geographic Visitor Center and watched the IMAX film of The Canyon…it was really incredible! Donna waited for us in the center because those types of films make her head [View Full Entry]

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