Thursday, June 5, 2008

Arizona Vacation Part 3: The long drive home

Although we had a wonderful time in Arizona, we weren't looking forward to the LONG ride home. We estimated it would take around 8 1/2 hours for the drive itself, not counting the stops - which is a must if you are traveling with kids.

We decided to break it up as best we could while still trying to get home in a somewhat timely manner. About 3 hours after leaving Phoenix, we stopped in Tuba City for lunch at McDonald's. Tuba City is on the western edge of the Navajo reservation; I mentioned this to the kids as we were leaving the town and Jefferson said,"I was wondering why there were so many Indians at McDonald's, but I didn't want to be rude so I didn't say anything." From Tuba City, we drove to Kayenta, which is near Monument Valley. We had a few different road options for the ride home, and we chose to drive through Monument Valley, since none of us had been there. The scenery was beautiful, and we recognized many of the formations from different movies we've seen. We stopped to stretch our legs and get some pictures:

Monument Valley is situated on a small strip between Arizona and Utah. It was interesting to note that on the Arizona side, Native Americans had built houses right up to the bases of some of the rock formations but once we were in Utah, there wasn't a single house to be seen anywhere near the formations. The road took us through Mexican Hat, which is a microscopic speck on the map but is located in the middle of some vibrantly colored sandstone cliffs. We opted not to stop in Blanding or Monticello, and drove straight for Moab. About 20 miles outside of Moab, we stopped at an arch literally located next to the freeway. We decided this was another great opportunity to stretch our legs:

You probably can't read it in the picture, but this arch is named "Wilson Arch". This was exciting for us, as we both have Wilson blood in us and this is Del's middle name!

Del,Bronson,Jefferson, and I hiked to the top while Krissia and Mathison hung out in the van:

After our hike, we stopped for dinner in Moab, then it was straight on to Price. 10 hours after we left Phoenix, we pulled into our driveway. Luckily, Mathison is a great traveler, so we'd had a nice drive:

We had a great time....but it sure is nice to be home :)

2 comments:

Seth and Emry Gubler said...

Mathison looks quite serious in that top picture. Maybe he was ready to head home by then.

McKay Missy and Boys said...

Mathison looks so precious in that last picture. It sounds like you had a very pretty drive home.

After reading your last blog about Mathison's testing at PCH I was feeling so bad for him. It sounds like torture. When do you get the results back?