Road Trip! (very photo heavy)

I LOVE road trips....Zach loves road trips....Jim does NOT like road trips! (unless it's for a hunting trip) soooo when Jim had to go up to Page, AZ to work for the past 9 days, Zach and I decided we could take a road trip to see him...I mean, we get a nice free hotel paid for by SRP (that Jim is staying in) and we get to play all day and feel a little guilty doing so while Jim works but he tells us to go have fun since he is not into doing all the driving around anyways :) each night we get to have dinner with Jim and he was happy because he said he likes to have my big butt next to him when he is sleeping, not sure if that is a nice compliment or ??? he could leave out the *big* part of that comment! hee hee

so anyways...Zach and I had so much fun,  lots of fun music, jerky, bugles and chocolate covered raisons!  basically we traveled 800 miles, took 285 pictures and spent too much money eating out but the trip was priceless. We left here on a Saturday morning, and Page AZ is 5 1/2 hours from where we live, I like to stop and take pictures of everything and eat so it actually took us about 6 1/2 hours! that night we had dinner with Jim and his co worker Alex. Sunday morning, Zach and I went to Hanging Gardens hike, nothing was in bloom since it is winter but it was a nice little hike and so beautiful!

Next we went to Lake Powell/Glen Canyon Dam and Tour of it, very interesting, since Jim works on similar dam equipment at Roosevelt it was neat to see this, the elevator ride that we went down was a little intimidating and scary for me but it was so beautiful and just plain cool

                                                 these ravens were everywhere ang HUGE!

                                                             where Jim was working

after that, we had lunch and then went on the Antelope Slot Canyon tour, BEAUTIFUL and AMAZING place, if you ever have a chance to go, GO! the formations were formed due to rain and wind. Our tour guide was so cool, he really took the time with Zach and I and told us exactly where to hold the camera to get the best shots and he took some cool pictures of us too.

                                                                  Arizona waterfall

                                     The tour guide made it look like Zach was holding fire...

                                                        do you see the elephants?

Monday morning we headed into Utah, since Utah is only 8 miles from where we were and since we have never been, it was a "must go see: on our list, here is our proof!

we had decided since we had such a long trip home that we would just start getting on the road to go home...then we saw the turn off for the Horse Shoe Bend hike that we had been wanting to see and was on our list too, we thought "we are this close and who knows when we will be back, lets just do it" well you hike about 15 minutes and then all of a sudden there is the huge (scary) canyon, very intimdating but so beautiful and so worth the hike (easy hike) you would never know it's there...it's just amazing....God is amazing for creating such beauty!

This is not my picture because I do not own a wide angle lense (it's on my list of wants NOW!)

we were FINALLY on our way home with still a long drive....then we see the turn off for the Grand Canyon (South Rim), we just kind of looked at each other and kept saying back and forth if we should go or not, knowing it would really put us behind on time, well OF COURSE we had to go!!! Zach had never seen the Grand Canyon (yes we are lame and have lived in AZ and hadn't seen the Grand Canyon, I had many years ago just driving by so it wasn't the real thing) it was so cool because it costs $25 to enter into the Grand Canyon, when we drove through the gate to pay, the nice man said "it's MLK day and today is free!" yay!!! we were meant to come! The Grand Canyon is beautiful, stunning and just amazing!  It was super cold though and soooo windy but we had so much fun!

 It was THE BEST TRIP!
okay I know that was VERY picture heavy but some of the family needed to see those :)
hugs....