Northeren Arizona Travel Log - Day one

I was exhausted as we pulled out of our driveway for our trip to Northern Arizona; to cooler weather and beautiful views.

It had been a whirlwind weekend, full of birthdays and beer festivals (side note: I took The Mister to a beer festival. We had the greatest time people watching! But that's for another post!) Our plan was to be packed up and out of here by 8:30 am. We made it out by the scheduled time, but I was so tired I decided that "if we didn't have it, we didn't need it."

I didn't realize until we were well out of the "turn around" stage that that statement would mean sleeping for four nights without pillows; or that we would be making our first road trip since The Girl was old enough to sit front-facing, without a DVD player. The player itself was actually in the car, but the correct plug was not. All i can say is thank goodness the kids now know how to read. And can do so without car sickness.


We made it to the Grand Canyon Village where we had planned to tent camp for 2 nights. We took our first walk to the canyon.
We arrived at the rim an hour (or so) before sunset and watched the colors change beneath the shadows. It was breath taking! People had already started coming to the rim for the sunset "show", placing blankets and folded up camp chairs on varied places along the edge.
We were all getting hungry for our first camp dinner of boil-in-a-bag-rice and canned chicken mixed together with a bit of canned mixed veggies (sound good huh?). Well, (and I am being totally serious here) our appetites were quickened and our senses teased when a pizza delivery guy walked passed us in the opposite direction on the trail, looking for the group who had ordered three large pizzas for their dinner. You should have seen the kids faces. The Boy said. "They deliver pizza all the way out here?!" Apparently, they do.

Grand Canyon village is like a little city. Between the fully equipped grocery store, the Canyon Cafe, post office, medical office and gift shops, there isn't much you can't get up there. We made a stop at the store on our way back to camp to pick up fire wood since we were told we couldn't gather wood; that it would be available for purchase. We figured on paying at a higher premium, we had no idea what that premium would be....$8.00 for about six pieces of wood.

The plan was to cook our quick dinner on a borrowed camping stove and then roast marshmallows over a fire (also kept for warmth, the temp dropped to 28 degrees that night) for smores. We ended up making what The Mister and I now refer to as the Rodeo Drive campfire. It was an Arizona fire, at California prices. It was worth it because....

That night we had our first adventure: the camping stove didn't work. This meant we were cooking over a fire very late at night .

More importantly, this also meant that my coffee in the morning was in complete and total danger of not happening!

Luckily I am married to the best man anywhere and he (without even my prompting) got up first thing in the morning and got me the biggest cup-of-joe he could find in the canyon. Don't you know I gave him a big smooch!! Oh, and have I mentioned lately how stinkin' cute he is too? But I digress.

But back to our dinner...Two hours after watching the pizza guy coming waltzing down the trail with hot pizzas, we were eating our first camp meal. We cooked the chicken and mixed veggies right in their tin cans and the rice in my good Caphalon sauce pan (I did actually get all the soot washed off, I was worried for a bit!). We all ate ravenously from our blue tin camping bowls. It tasted amazingly good. So good that The Boy and The Girl are still talking about how good it was exactly a week later. It goes to show you how powerful the seasoning of hunger can be...

It was so late that the kids were begging to go to bed and we completely forgot about the smores!

We all slept well that night and the adventures continued very early in the morning...

Come back tomorrow for Day 2!

La Vida Dulce!