Red Rock Road Trip - Four Corners, Grand Canyon

Friday, June 1, 2012

After checking out of the White Eagle Inn, we stopped by Walmart to pick up some essentials.  While we were there they announced that they were taking an extra 50% off all clearance merchandise.  We ended up leaving with a cart-full of Legos.  I wasn't sure how we were going to fit all of those boxes in our already loaded van, but Nate managed.  He can work miracles when he wants to prove me wrong. 

We left Cortez and headed off to the Four Corners Monument.  It wasn't really what I was expecting.  A dirt road and a dirt parking lot and lots of vendors set up all around the monument.  Really we were just there for the photo op.  The kids had fun posing and being in four states at once.  Since I didn't know there would be people there selling food, we had picked up lunch in Cortez.  I felt bad about missing out on some authentic Navajo fry bread, so we stopped in Tuba City to get some.  We found some nice Navajo ladies selling fry bread on the side of the road.  It was so yummy and very worth the stop. 

We got to the Grand Canyon earlier than we had expected, so we had time to make a few stops on the way to our hotel.  We went to the Desert View Watchtower first.  The views were amazing.  Then we headed to the South Rim Visitor Center, but it was already closed.  The kids got a good laugh at the warning sign with a picture of a guy throwing up from heat exhaustion.  We took a little walk down to a lookout to see the canyon at sunset and got to pass some elk that were grazing about 20 feet away.  Abby was super excited to ride the shuttle back to the parking lot.  It was definitely a highlight of the trip for her.  Nate got to use some Spanish speaking skills with some people on the shuttle who were visiting from Spain.  They had been talking about our family for a couple of minutes (nothing mean) when Nate started talking to them.  The look on their faces was priceless when they realized that he understood what they had been saying.  I love that he is multi-lingual.