"I'm a Traveling Man"

Mike and I got up early to drive up north of Flagstaff to visit the Wupatki Ruins and drive by Sunset Crater and then head up to the Grand Canyon via the east entrance.

We saw 7 ruins at Wupatki and they were very interesting. The largest ruin is the wupatki ruin. It had a kiva and a ball court and a blowhole (a whole into the earth that blows out air or sucks it in depending on the atmospheric pressure). Typical of me, I took enough pictures of the ruins and all the signs that if anyone needs to do a 4th grade report on Native Americans, I have lots of material!!!

Sunset Crater was covered with lava and all the nearby mountains were also covered with lava flow. We decided to take a labeled hike at the base of Sunset crater. All of a sudden we found ourselves in snow and it was difficult to know where the trail was! But we had a nice hike and enjoyed learning about the crater.

The Grand Canyon was exactly that -GRAND! We enjoyed pulling off at all the viewpoints and were in awe of God's creations. We got there in the mid afternoon and enjoyed the sun setting on the North Rim as we looked from the South Rim. We had a lovely dinner at the famed El Tovar Hotel there in the Grand Canyon Park. After dinner we discovered 7 deer grazing on the grass in front of the hotel. On our way back to Sedona, in the dark and snow covered mountainsides (the road was clear), we stopped just short of hitting what we think was a big old male elk. A great day.