spring break

I took my sixteen year old son on a road trip over spring break and let him drive to really break in the drivers permit.  We drove from Vegas to Flagstaff and spent five days in northern Arizona.

He did an amazing job not only driving long distance on the highways for the first time in his life, but also handling the mountainous narrow and curvy roads we came across along the way.

We managed to see quite a bit during our short stay and didn’t waste a minute.

Day one:  Made a quick stop at the Hoover Dam – (the new bridge over the dam is well on its way to being completed).  We then drove another three and a half hours to Flagstaff and checked into our motel (located right on the famous Route 66).  Drove over to the visitors center in down town Flagstaff (which is located in the old train depot) to pick up some maps, brochures and coupons, and then used one of our coupons the Lowell Observatory where we watched a short film on the expansion of the universe and got to see the moons and rings of Saturn through their 24″ telescope.  (The Lowell Observatory is where Pluto was first discovered).

Day two:  We dove down to see  Montezuma’s Castle which is one of our our Nations National Monuments, and then drove back up to Sedona and spent the day discovering small hiking trails in the gorgeous city surrounded by odd formations in red rock.  If you have a chance to go through Sedona, a stop at the Chapel of the Holy Cross is a must.

Day 3:  The Grand Canyon!  Before going into the Grand Canyon though we stopped at the National Geographic Visitors center at the South Rim entrance to see The Grand Canyon Movie in the Imax theater.  It was nice to see the movie first as it presented a brief  history on the people who lived in the canyon as well as the people who explored one of the worlds greatest wonders.

Day 4:   The Museum of Northern Arizona! This is a must see for a visit to Flagstaff as the museum houses houses nearly 5 million objects in its anthropology, biology, fine art, and geology collections. We also saw an exhibit on the discovery of the most complete therizinosaur skeleton ever found.  We then went to two more national monuments,  the Sunset Crater National Monument and the Wupatki National Monument which is a large 100 room pueblo built in the 1100’s.  There is a  trail guide available in the visitors center or you can download it off the internet that gives you the history of what life might have been like living in and around the pueblo.

Day 5:  Back to the Grand Canyon for a hike down the Bright Angel Trail.  We only went down about two miles (which was more than enought to get the experience of actually being in the canyon.)  And since discovering that it’s not too far a drive to get there from Vegas, we might go back for a longer hike even further down canyon.

Day 6:  Back home to Vegas for rest and relaxation!

What I learned on this trip, was that the universe is very large and our earth is very small, and generations come and go leaving only glimpses of themselves behind, and the problems that seem so big to us today, are really nothing in comparaison.