26 Miles

July Will Be A Blur

// July 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

Coming back from vacation always has a price. Mine will be a July spent buried under a mountain of things going on at work. No point enumerating. Would take too long. Nothing insurmountable, just a big to-do list.

The trip already seems like ages ago, and it’s only been 12 days since we got back.

Little victories. I just bought the first 3 seasons of Mad Men on sale in iTunes for $10/season. WooHoo!

Been eating better and walking a lot. Can already see results. It’s motivating. Today was a blowout day. First day since I’ve been doing better. But tomorrow back to putting less and better things into my body. I feel better, every day.

Got filmed by a Food Network crew while eating lunch with a client today. May be on TV in September. That’d be cool.

Day 17 Summary – Albuquerque, NM to Home

// June 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

We’re home!

We got up at 4am this morning and left Albuquerque for home. There isn’t much to tell of today’s events other than a long, long drive. We arrived home to a very hot afternoon in the area with temperatures pushing 100 degrees. We haven’t stopped sweating yet.

If feels great to be home and it’ll take a few days to adjust to being off the road. It was a truly unforgettable trip. We saw some amazing sights and spent a lot of great time together and with our family and have a wealth of memories to carry us forward.

Thanks for following us on our trip!

Day 16 Summary – Williams to Albuquerque, NM

// June 26th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

Today we left Williams and stopped at Meteor Crater, which is about 30 minutes east of Flagstaff, AZ. At Meteor Crater we checked out the crater from the various observation points and got some pictures. The kids thought it was pretty cool. We watched the 10 minute movie which explained how the crater was formed and that the next global-killer might be just around the corner! WooHoo! Nice.

We toured the museum at the site which talked a lot about the meteor geology and blast effects, as well as the solar system in general and where meteors, comets, and such come from.

It’s a fairly quick experience though and I guess it’s privately owned (it’s not a national park) as it cost WAY more than any of the national parks we visited. But it was fun and interesting.

Then we made the 4 hour drive from there to Albuquerque, stopping in Winslow, AZ to stand on a corner and have a taco.

When we arrived in Albuquerque, it was thunderstorming but we missed the worst of it. We had dinner at Outback Steakhouse and will head to bed early tonight and get up around 4am local time to try to get home by dinnertime Sunday.

We’ve had an AMAZING trip but miss our stuff and our dog and our neighborhood and our friends and CAN’T WAIT to be home tomorrow night.

Day 15 Summary – Grand Canyon NP

// June 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

Today started with a Wild West cowboy shootout at the Grand Canyon Railway Station, which lasted about 15 minutes. Fortunately I wasn’t the tourist-sucker they choose from the audience to be their foil. Pays to not sit on the front row.

Next we boarded the train and departed for the Grand Canyon, which took about 2 hours. Along the way, we were entertained by cowboy/Native American musicians, and the sights along the route were described by the tour guide on each coach. The scenery started with forests around Williams, then changed to mostly flat scrub-brush ranchland, then to high-desert forest, then to pine forest, then we arrived at the Grand Canyon. The weather was cloudy for the most part and the temperature was mild in the upper 70’s.

Once at the canyon, we went directly to the rim and took some pictures, then walked the rim trail to the west and visited a few gift shops and got something to eat. Then we caught a shuttle bus to the other side of the main visitor area, hoping to take a longer walk along the canyon rim back towards where we started. There was some construction of the rim trail underway at the second location though, so we didn’t get to take the route we planned, so caught another shuttle bus to another location and the kids filled out their postcards.

By then it was almost time to catch our train so we took a shuttle bus back to the train depot. When we arrived, it started to rain and hail lightly, so we hurried to the train before the monsoon-season deluge began, which lasted about 20 minutes. The train ride back included more cowboy musicians and a mock train robbery by bandits, which although the kids knew about beforehand and knew it was pretend, still kind of freaked Ethan out a little.

In the evening we got some burgers from the local Dairy Queen and watched movies in our hotel room.

Tomorrow we start the long journey home, with stops at Meteor Crater just east of Flagstaff, AZ, and staying in Albuquerque for the evening.

We’ve had a great trip and look forward to starting the trip home.

Day 14 Summary – Salt Lake City to Grand Canyon NP, AZ

// June 24th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life

Today we made the long trip from Salt Lake City to Williams, AZ and the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel where we’ll spend two nights. We left Salt Lake City around 7am and finally arrived at our hotel in Arizona around 5pm so it was about a 10 hour trip — the second longest day of our vacation. The longest will be Sunday going from Albuquerque, NM to home.

We passed through a lot of different scenery and it changed quickly between widely varied landscapes – treeless valleys and mountains in central Utah to rocky desert in southern Utah to pine forests in northern Arizona back to rocky, mountainous desert, back to pine forest near Flagstaff.

We feel like we’re in the home stretch and are a little road-weary and homesick. We’re looking forward to Sunday and seeing our house again (and our dog on Monday)!

Tomorrow we’ll see a cowboy shootout in the morning at the train depot in Williams, then board the train for the Grand Canyon, visit the Grand Canyon, then return to the hotel in the afternoon on the train. We can’t wait!