Sometimes Hubby and Wifey don't automatically agree. Sometimes Hubby fails horribly at his primary job of reading Wifey's mind. Today was one of those days. Wifey wanted pictures of the Saguaro cactus. We had considered going to Saguaro National Park, but decided against the extra few hours drive south of Phoenix to get there and instead to snap some pictures when we passed fields of cacti along the road.
As we entered the metro area of Phoenix, wifey realized our chance to capture the cacti along the road was slipping away. Which made her a tinge grumpy. Which made Hubby a tinge grumpy. Apparently Wifey needs to say "stop here for pictures" and not assume Hubby can see the perfect shot as we drive past.
Googling as we drove, wifey found the Phoenix Sonoran Preserve in north Phoenix, confirmed it had free admission, and navigated to this hoping for the desired landscape. It was not present.
Hubby saved the day, turning back north to where we'd just come from and driving until Wifey announced "stop here"! We pulled onto the shoulder and Wifey proceeded to traipse around the surrounding landscape with her DSLR.
Wifey's photography bug satisfied, our journey south to the airport resumed!
On our drive back south from Utah to the airport in Phoenix, AZ, we took a brief detour to visit the Montezuma Castle National Monument (MCNM). This had been on the schedule for day one, but had to be omitted due to the priority of purchasing our America the Beautiful Pass.
The MCNM was established in 1903 and has been a popular tourist destination for decades. Back in the 1930's tourists would climb up wooden ladders to access and tour the site. Today it is closed to all but archaeologists and historical preservation teams.
We did enjoy getting to 'hike' HA! the quarter mile trail accessing the viewpoint of this incredible piece of architecture.
Wupatki National Monument and the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument are connected by a 34 mile scenic loop off of US-89. We were traveling south on US-89 from Flagstaff to Phoenix today and decided to take this detour! Going N->S we began our exploration at what we later learned to be the least impressive pueblos of the Wupatki National Monument. Basically this area contains a number of ancient buildings which have survived! Most impressive is that actual humans survived in this, a DESERT!
The pueblos often had no exterior doors and the interior doors were very small. This gave the locals an advantage should attackers try and invade.
At our 4th or 5th pueblo wifey was tired ... so she climbed onto the roof, found a spot of shade, and just took pretty pictures from there. The next two are both just that ... pictures of the roof of a Pueblo.
Reaching the visitors center, we continued trudging along. A family had just visited this area before us and the kids were eager to share about the Blowhole they had just experienced. Wifey's expectations were not significant. She was wrong.
The following is a summary of the video's audio -
Surprising find! This is called a blowhole. It has to do with an underground cavern and air pressure that results in very cold air coming out of the ground. It is seriously as cool as AC! It’s near some Native American Pueblo’s in Arizona. We’re in the middle of the desert and the outside temperature is around 94 degrees. Russ points out ... when I was a kid I wanted AC clothes before I was willing to go back to DC. They need blowholes there in DC! Russ also points out that this is stronger than the AC vents he experienced sitting on/near as a kid.
Surprising find!
This is called a blowhole. It has to do with an underground cavern and air pressure that results in very cold air coming out of the ground. It is seriously as cool as AC! It’s near some Native American Pueblo’s in Arizona. We’re in the middle of the desert and the outside temperature is around 94 degrees.
Russ points out ... when I was a kid I wanted AC clothes before I was willing to go back to DC. They need blowholes there in DC!
Russ also points out that this is stronger than the AC vents he experienced sitting on/near as a kid.
Leaving the Wupatki National Monument we proceeded to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. We decided to do a quick one mile hike to make the trip 'worth it'. Mid-way through the loop we ran into two other couples and began chatting. Turns out they are AoG as well and have a history of coaching JBQ! Our one mile took far longer than anticipated but the fellowship was still enjoyable.
We were also grateful we'd caught the weather before traveling. Our new friends had packed for winter and had to buy travel summer wardrobes on-site!
Thanks to Wifey's mom we obtained shuttle tickets for Zion National Park for 11:00 am today! These tickets went on sale (at $1 each) well before we planned our trip out west, and again the day before at 9 am Mountain time. Sadly for us, at 9 am Mountain, we were on Bert and Pumpkin! Anyway, due to the time of our tickets we slept in a bit and began getting ready around 8 or 8:30 am. Wifey did a double check on the requirements for using the tickets and noticed a limitation that the named purchaser of the tickets had to be there for check-in. Our tickets were under Wifey's dad's name!
Do we risk it? We found an old ID with Wifey's maiden name that maybe we could use to talk our way on. It'd sure be a shame to drive to the park, and not be able to get in! Maybe we could just switch our Zion and Bryce days and buy new shuttle tickets under our names .... in 30 minutes when they went on sale! Cue ... more debate! Risks v. Rewards!
We decided to give it a try and were refreshing the Recreation.gov website at 9:00 mountain sharp. Between 300 and 400 tickets were available per hour. Wifey added 7:00 am tickets to our basket. She second guessed and went back to the home page ... now around 40 were available per hour (it was about 9:02). She added 8:00 am tickets instead. And we checked out. Now we were good to go for tomorrow and would head instead to Bryce today!
The drive to Bryce Canyon is about 2 hours from our AirBNB. We had lunch already packed for the day and ended up eating in enroute due to the late start. (We arrived at Bryce between 12 and 1 pm).
We looked for coffee along the way without much success, eventually stopping at a Subway with Espresso on its sign just outside the Bryce Park entrance. We received a sugary mess, but with 2 shots so we decided it was a success!
We began our experience at Bryce at the visitors center, gaining an understanding of the park layout and suggested hiking trails.
Our first stop would be at the far end of the Canyon where we listened to a ranger discuss the Grand Staircase and the geology of this area.
LOVE the Social Distancing Stickers on the ground!
From here we slowly made the drive back to the front portion of the canyon for an additional ranger discussion of the formation of Hoodoos, taking pictures of the scenery along the way.
We saw some fantastic scenery ... along with some evidence of #COVIDTRAVEL
Hubby decided to share with the world HIS view for most of the trip :)
After arriving in time, we 'enjoyed' the second ranger talk. Honestly, it was in the sun and pretty duplicative of the displays inside the visitors center.
Upon its conclusion, however, we embarked on a 3 mile hike of the Hoodoos! We took the Queens Garden Trail down to where it intersected with the Navajo trail and then followed the Wall Street portion of the Navajo trail back up the canyon. See below 2 videos of our hikes - one in real time and the other in 8X speed.
The view from within the canyon is stunning and worth the effort to hike down. The bottom of the canyon is full of trees which provide a pleasant shade for the middle section of the hike!
We were even able to pull out the selfie stick and capture us together :) Aweee!
As a reward for our hike (a reward we're pretty sure is actually meant for kids, but who cares!!) we received these stickers!
Back on top of the canyon, we spent some time taking pictures of each other instead of the scenery. You may have noticed these pop up on our FB profiles :)
Leaving the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, we proceeded to the town of Kanab, just north of the AZ/UT state line. Kanab is nestled in a valley of sorts and is surrounded by stunning red cliffs.
Around 3:30, UT time we messaged our AirBNB hosts and asked if it would be possible to check-in a bit early. They agreed and we proceeded to their home. The view from the front walkway is amazing!
Marcia and Mark greeted us as we entered their AirBNB designed home. Wifey had emailed previously and already knew they had built this home specifically to host AirBNB guests. The front door access is controlled via coded keypad and opens into a foyer. From this foyer 3 doors open. Two are to guestrooms (also keypad controlled and the third, a double door opening into Mark and Marcia's private area of the home. As we came and went during our stay, these doors were usually open during the day and closed in the evenings.
Also in the foyer were snacks and toiletries available for guests along with hand sanitizer and relevant business licenses.
Each of the guest rooms has its own ensuite bathroom! and mini-kitchen stocked with coffee! The mini-fridge includes a function freezer compartment which we loved as it allowed us to freeze water bottles for our cooler and upcoming hikes.
By the end our our stay, we enjoyed chatting with Mark & Marcia and even toured their portion of the home as well, taking notes of brilliant design choices we may just incorporate into our upcoming build.
