Visiting Page and Great Grandma and Grandpa Moore

C'mon Grandpa! I said this was the "crazy pose" picture!

Thanks for your hospitality, Grandma and Russel.

We told the girls they could tell their friends we went to Utah over the weekend because this little dinosaur museum is actually in Big Water, UT, near the AZ/UT border. Quite a few universities and conservation groups have done digs in the Staircase Escalante Nat'l Park. They've found lots of different dinosaur fossils, and some of them are on display at this little museum.

I had never been in Lake Powell prior to this trip. I've driven by it many times, but we never stopped to play. The water was a little chilly, but bearable and there were TONS of tourists around. We went an hour without hearing anyone else speak English. And even then, it was with a British accent!

We visited a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Moore. We did a "movie at the park", the dinosaur museum, lots of card games, and a BBQ with Uncle Darrell and Aunt Lena.

Good times, good memories!

Sunset Crater and Wupatki Nat'l Monument

By the time we figured out where we wanted to be at the crater, it started pouring down rain. Not usually a problem for us Arizonans who are rain-starved. But this rain was accompanied by some pretty severe, too-close-for-comfort lightening. This was the only picture I got outside the car because some of us (you know who you are :) were scared! We did get a chance to go through the visitor's center and learn a little about the volcanoes in the area. Very interesting.

Seriously...check out the size of those drops! It got to the point where we couldn't see 25 ft in front of us and the windshield wipers were full speed.

We got out ahead of the storm and were able to stop at the Wupatki Indian Ruins. We didn't learn too much about these ruins because we knew the rain ( and lightening ;) wasn't too far away. We ran through the ruins snapping as many pictures as we could and figured we could learn about it on the internet, right?

Hard to believe these ruins are just out in the middle of nowhere.

Here comes the rain! Hmmmm...is that Dad already in the car? Poor Raegan was left to fend for herself. :) We had a little more time at the other ruins to read and explore. It was a great side trip on our way up to Page to visit Great Grandma and Grandpa Moore.

Montezuma's Castle

We took a few trips this month before the girls had to go back to school. We always pass so many national parks in a hurry to get where we're going. So this time we decided to stop along the way and visit these places we always see the turn off signs for, but never visit.
Our first stop was Montezuma's Castle, which was on our way to Flagstaff. It was named for an Aztec chief, but the Sinagua Indians were actually the ones who built it and lived there. And it's not really a castle, but a multi-level dwelling for several families. These aren't the only ruins, just the best preserved.


We called this the camouflage tree because the bark reminds us of army fatigues. :) Everyone wanted their picture in front of it, I'm not sure why.

Beaver Creek- Neither Canon nor Dad was ready for this photo op.
We have to be the loudest tourists. It was such a peaceful, quiet place until we got there.

Through this whole trip, it was amazing to see how many foreigners there were visiting these sights. I never realized that people who live in England would want to visit Montezuma's Castle like I want to see Stone Henge.

We like to learn about past cultures and people because it helps us realize that the world is a lot bigger place than our immediate surroundings and keeps things in perspective. What will they say years from now about us?