Hallelujah! Im alive!

We ended up leaving at 5:00 on Friday. I think that every vacation we go on, the actual leaving time ends up being pushed back. On this one for some odd reason, i thought that we were leaving at noon. Hmm.

Saturday, about noon, i got a bad headache, so we stopped at the nearest coffee house, which was really cool! Look at the pictures! I got some ibuprofen and a cafe mocha so i was happy. Kansas is so beautiful! It's windy (i almost fell over) but it's beautiful. I absolutely loved traveling through there. That night we stopped in Limon Colorado and ate at a little restaurant called Oscars. It was really good, but they literally had mountains of food. I'll let my mom elaborate on that story, but just know that with mountains of food comes mountains of trash. :)

That night we stayed at a little motel called 'the cactus rose'. It was very nice and in the morning we got to meet the owner who i think is a chaplain at the penitentiary. We drove through mountains all of Sunday. We stopped at the royal gorge which was amazing. Lots of pictures! Then we stopped at a mountain that had dinosaur footprints in the side of it and a small road that went along the top. Poor John was very scared that we would fall off. Then we went through the Rocky's, and yes , it was snowing. My ears were popping and i had a headache through most of it but it was still breath taking. I think my eyes were glued to the window throughout the whole day. Pictures never seem to capture the true beauty of nature.

Sunday we spent the night at a small little cabin up on the mountain. Funny story, when my dad first called them he asked for a a place to put up our tent.

“Are you familiar with this place?”

“Well not really,”

“...We got 6 inches of snow today.”

Haha. I don't think i would have survived through that third night if we had stayed in a tent.

But that cabin was probably my favorite place to stay, i wouldn't mind going back there for a week. It was the perfect hideaway; the perfect place to just relax. The next morning i went out behind it and took pictures of the river and all the trees sparkling in new born sunshine. Monday was our day for Mesa Verde. A thirty minutes into town and a stop at a coffee house and we were off on the long journey up the side of the mountain. Looking down on the town was so cool. Especially when you think that you were only there about ten minutes before.

Mesa Verde is made up of about 600 cliff dwellings as they called them (an Indian town or rooms that they built below a rock overhang). We went to only two of them :) . I think all of us agreed that if we had gone on this vacation only to see this, it would have been enough.

On the second tour our guide told us how spiritually minded these Indians were and that whenever their descendants came back they had to ask for a moment of silence to honor their ancestors and what they had made. He spoke so highly of them because they did this, and it made me think, why are we looked down upon when we pray to honor our Father?

It was all very enjoyable until the end of our tour. Being claustrophobic crawling through a small little tunnel doesn't really appeal to me. But i did it. My dad almost had to push me through, but i did it.

On the way back to the campground, my dad started talking (Surprise! Surprise!) to a professional photographer about a beautiful spot about five or ten miles from us. Detour! In about thirty minutes we were back on the road, but because we were already about an hour late we didn't get there until it was pitch black. This was our first night in our tent. I guess it wasn't as bad as i expected but it wasn't comfortable...at all. Everyone was stuffed into this little tent with almost no room to move, laying on what felt like concrete. And it was freezing cold. I think i woke up every half hour.

Tuesday we hiked about two miles from our campground to the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was so big my eyes couldn't judge the real distance. I could only stand in awe.

After we walked around it we packed up and headed out once more to a small town about an hour away. “Cell Phone Reception! Yes!” Said Amanda while stopping at a coffee shop to chill.

Wednesday we stopped on Route 66! ya know, like the road from Cars? We pretty much just relaxed and walked around the 'downtown'. lol.

Thursday we hiked the 10 miles down to our campground. The first mile and a half was all going steeply down hill. And somehow i just knew that i would absolutely hate coming back up it. Lemme just say that, that was the longest ten miles. Ever. Seriously, when you thought you were almost there. You really had no idea how far away you actually were. It just seemed to keep going on and on. This was partly due to the fact that we started out around noon. The hottest time of day there is from 10 to 3. yeah. Havasu falls is right by the Supai village, and i started think how weird it would be to have hundreds of people come through your little town all the time. You could tell they really didn't want us to be there, but i couldn't blame them.

Everything was so dry, and then all of a sudden life seemed to spring with the water. We totally jumped into a different atmosphere. Everything seemed like a desert yet the water was like ice.

Friday we went down to a hidden waterfall. Unbelievable is all i have to say. We met a family there that is very outgoing and had been there about 4 times so they were climbing all over the waterfall and jumping off of it. Morgan immediately fell in love with them and followed them everywhere. I was perfectly fine with watching.

Saturday We went back to the waterfall and took tons of pictures, but it wasn't quite as fun just because there was more people. For the remainder of the day we did some exploring but mostly tried to rest and get ready for the hike out again.

Sunday i woke up at 2. My poor mother was soaking wet and not very happy. I'm sure she'll tell more about that. I went back to sleep and woke up again at 4:15 and we started packing up the tent. It still amazes me how we did that in the dark. As we started back up let me just say that we had 4 flashlights. 2 of them were the ones that you shake so that you don't have to run out of batteries. Those things are crap. You seriously can't see anything. So we pretty much have 2 flashlights that work. When one of the light bulbs went out. Yeah. But i must say that for some reason i was way more enjoyable to walk in the dark. It was probably one of my favorite parts of our trip. Just being able to walk through one of Gods amazing creations and just be able to think. We made it about halfway through without sun. It took me, morgan, mom, and brendan about 3 hours to go 9 miles. But then the hard part came. That last mile took us about an hour to finish. Yeah. It was so nice to be done. Brend and i had to wait another 15 or 30 for everyone else to finish, and then we could start heading home.

{This cannot begin to show how amazing and wonderful it was to see the grand canyon. Like Levantir said, some things you just have to see}

We went back to route 66 and stayed at a place called El Rancho. It was hilarious cuz it was all lit up in neon and was supposed to be this old western hotel that a whole bunch of stars had stayed at. I loved the Grand Canyon, but it was so nice to stay in a bed.

We drove all day Monday and Tuesday and got home at about 10 that night.

So i'm back home and trying to get back into routine. But it was nice to get away. It definitely showed me how awesome God's power is and made me wonder how anyone can even doubt his existence or think that our world could be made by chance. There is no possible way this world could exist. And there is no possible way we could exist without his sacrifice.

~Amanda

“The earth is the Lords and everything in it

The world and all who live in it;

For he founded it upon the seas and

established it upon the waters...”

“The Heavens declare the glory of God

The skies proclaim the works of His hand...”