John celebrated a huge birthday this last weekend so I wanted to do something pretty special for him or at least I hoped he would think it was special. I decided that I would take him for a "surprise" trip. I didn't tell him where we were going just that we were leaving on Thursday night and coming back sometime on Monday. I don't do well keeping things from him.....and making the decision to take him where I did I was pretty worried about as well....would he like it....would the weather be decent at this time of year.....so many questions.....
Thursday we lit out right after I got off work for Flagstaff.....so he still wasn't sure what was going to happen since there are several spots we could of ended up via Flagstaff. We had a really nice dinner at an italian restaurant Mamma Luisa's. It was nice that the hotel had upgraded us to a suite and too bad that we weren't spending more time there.
Friday morning we left heading East towards the hot spot of Winslow, AZ where we had breakfast - filled up with gas and then made our way to the Petrified Forest.....both of us had never been here before.....thought about it several times but had never made the trip. It was amazing.....we had a great talk by a wonderful guide who then took us for a guided walk through the Giant Logs...this is where "Old Faithful" is as well.....an amazing tree/rock. We did the entire drive and came around to the Painted Desert....which also included a tribute to Route 66 since we were on that route for most of the date.
We then headed to Chinle - the home of Canyon de Chelly....talking to John he picked instead of doing Canyon de Chelly the next day that he would rather go up and see Monument Valley....so we headed there the next morning. Drove through some amazing country....colors and rocks and mountains that are just unbelievable....we got to Monument Valley and realized that the road to drive around and see all of it was a 17 mile dirt road......we talked Ali into it and away we went......it was a fairly maintained road other than a couple little problems.....but we made it in and around safe and sound.
Sunday we toured Canyon de Chelly and even though this was my third trip...I was amazed at either how much I had forgotten or how much they had made improvements......the ruins just blow my mind to think that these people built these and then climbed up and down on a daily basis to take care of their crops, hunting, etc. This is a very peaceful place.....and I could have spent hours just sitting there.....but we had places to go....we were headed to Heber for the night.
Mother Nature graced us in Heber with a fantastic thunderstorm....with lightening and thunder and so much rain I couldn't believe it.....we even lost power in the motel room for about a half an hour....it was great just laying there listening to the rain come down.
So his opinion of the trip: the only trip that he feels has beat it was Nashville and Ireland runs a close second......so my only problem now is What am I going to do Next year.......
For some reason good ol typepad isn't letting me upload pictures so I will attempt to do that tomorrow.