Grand Canyon & Mesa Verde Family Trip 2010

So, it's about time that I finally post pictures and stories from my trip, and to give you a heads up it's pretty long. ENJOY! Well, the first stop we made was at Jacob's Lake while on our way to the Grand Canyon.

Pretty much everywhere around us while we camped at Jacob's Lake.

One morning my mom, Kurt, and I went out on a hunt for this so called "Jacob's Lake" We took every turn, left and right, and drove around for about a good 45 minutes just trying to find the lake. We finally gave up and went to the little gas station/cafe/inn/gift shop and asked the clerk where the lake was. Come to find out, Jacob's Lake isn't really a lake. It's more like a pond. Which was sort of a disappointment, but oh well. We went on our way to drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon which was really amazing and awesome.

Going to the North Rim was awesome. My mom, Kurt, Andrew, Alex and I went on a little trail to go out to the very edge of the mountain. While there we saw a monk who was actually really nice because he let Andrew and Alex get a picture taken with him, sadly I wasn't there to get any evidence on my camera. But anywhoo, it was pretty windy, but it really wasn't that bad. I just wish Charles wasn't afraid of heights or had asthema because this trail was really pretty and a lot of fun to walk and see many people from many different places.

After coming back from that trail, we all went to the gift shop where Andrew and I discovered a book that we were very tempted to buy but for some reason decided not to.

After the grand canyon we drove for about what seemed like forever until we reached Cortez, Colorado to see Mesa Verde! We reached our KOA where we camped for the night and then got up bright and early so we could go see everything we wanted to. Here's a cool fact: There was a seriously huge fire a year or two ago that burnt up a lot of the mountain range around Mesa Verde which revealed over 100 undiscovered little "villages" in numerous places around the mountain. Well it's not cool that it was a real big fire, but still it's crazy how there were many other places that weren't discovered until a fire uncovered them from all the bushes and trees.

I recommend that if anyone visits Mesa Verde they should go on the tours. The funny thing about our tour was our Ranger. First of all, Andrew and I have our own way of talking to eachother that contains a very serious lisp impediment ordeal. Well we were talking like that the entire trip until we met our Ranger Tour Guide man. He walks up and starts greeting everyone and explaining the rules, well guess what. He has the speech impediment that me and Andrew use all the time. We were so shocked that we would meet anyone with the lisp that we use basically everyday, we didn't even dare try and talk like him so that he didn't hear us accidently somehow. He was very friendly and pretty funny I might add, which made it real fun and very informational for everything that he explained on how the pueblonians (if that is a real word) lived and survived in the mountains. It was really awesome how people can make a home and live in it while it's in the side of a mountain.

Well after Mesa Verde we went back to the trailer and swam in the little KOA pool to cool off and relax after a long awesome, fun day. The next morning we left to go to Lake Powell for the night to swim in the lake and because my mom didn't want to drive 8 hours in one day and decided to break it up into two days. Then we drove home the next day and that was about it. I'm sorry that this is a long post, but this is only half of the stories that I have to tell. So if you want to know some of the other ones just let me know. I will more than be glad to tell you about it. And I promise that my next post wont be this long.