Day 22 Grand Canyon to Pennsylvania

Received word that my Stepmother has passed away. We're going to Pennsylvania. She was an incredibly nice woman. We've had a great trip.

Day 21 Grand Canyon

A beautiful day and the Big Gully showed her beautiful face.

Day 20 Sedona to Grand Canyon

We both had trouble sleeping thinking about today’s drive. The road out of town was supposed to be an exhilarating, winding 30 mile drive uphill through the mountains to Flagstaff (9500 feet). What an option, do the drive in the snow (after 5) or in the dark (before 7)? So naturally, we left at 6 in the snow and the dark. What a dope! The drive though Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon was 100 miles and it was a miserable three and a half hours in a 40 MPH blizzard. We managed to find the El Tovar Hotel, which sits on the south rim of the canyon, only to find out there was a complete white out and we wouldn’t be able to see the canyon for a couple of days. Just walking outside in the blowing snow was crazy. Here we were in a hotel just 20 yards from the Grand Canyon and couldn’t see a damn thing. We just hung out for the rest of the day, watched the Super Bowl and waited for the snow to end and ended up enjoying the fact that we made it there.

Day 19 Sedona

We decided to take a hike today since it was supposed to be the last nice day before snow was to move in the area. We intended for it to be a little two hour walk. It turned out to be a three and a half hour slog through melting snow up one side of a mountain and down and around the other. It was good exercise and we got to see some beautiful scenery. The best part was watching Sylvia tippy-toe through the puddles.

Afterwards, a reward seemed appropriate, so we went to dinner at Sedona’s renowned Cowboy Club. We started off with an out of the ordinary appetizer of; grilled buffalo, grilled rattlesnake, fried cactus, and a pork and rattlesnake tamale. For the entrée we split a bone-in rib eye, the specialty of the restaurant. It was really good, but neither of us finished our half. Afterwards, we went back to the room for an early night. It was supposed to start snowing around 5AM and we were planning on leaving for the Grand Canyon in the morning.

Day 18 Sedona

It's a beautiful but cool day in Sedona and we decided to take an off road tour of the canyons in one of the pink Jeeps running around town (see picture of Sylvia with HER driver). It was a crazy two hour trip through and over what seemed like near vertical rocks. It was really spectacular and a lot of fun and afterwards we stopped and rewarded ourselves with some liquid refreshments ( see picture of MY bar).