Oh Yeah! Between the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon Izaak has discovered beef jerky, sweet and hot is definitely our favourite so far. I will do a food entry in a little while once we have indulged in more of the local delights but so far the twinkies are too sweet, but the Reese’s Pieces are a hit!

Grand and Bryce Canyons

I don’t know if I mentioned the Phoenix was a bit on the hot side, the Grand Canyon is thankfully a little cooler thanks to the altitude. The camping ground we stayed at was beautiful with pitches spread out nicely between pine trees.

A two day stay saw us walk part of the south rim, look at the geology museum and drop down into the canyon a mile or so. One thing that did grab my attention was a sign on the door to the small but very informative geology museum stating that fire arms were not permitted in the centre. I was struck by this, why would you take a gun into the geology museum at the Grand Canyon? there is nothing to hunt and I am pretty sure very few drug deals or gang land turf wars occur there as its a long way from anywhere and pretty small. Maybe I am a bit naive?

I think a theme of this holiday is going to be trying to cram too much into too little time. On the last evening at the Grand Canyon we tried to take in a sunset. Needless to say the kids were tired and did not want to go so dragged their heels meaning that we only just saw the sunset and a bit of a grumpy dad did a bit of shouting……

Part of this trip has also been about wildlife. If you are lucky you could see american condors, lions, rattle snakes, elk, chipmunks………so far nothing really, we did see a nice blue jay but thats about it.

Up really early to get out of the Grand Canyon and over to Bryce, a 6 hour journey….

The drive out along the south rim at that time is spectacular and an opportune viewing stop did indeed reward us with our first Condor. As we ground our way through the plains and canyons, I say ground but really this was a spectacular 6 hours through country that I can not really start to describe. Anyone that asks will simply get the reply, “just go and do it”. Lunch was our first proper road diner experience. The rest of the family had burgers and coke, I went for the meatloaf sandwich with a root beer. I say sandwich. Where I come from a sandwich means two slices of bread with a filling usually thinner thank the combined thickness of the bread. This sandwich had what seemed to be two slices of THIN melba toast with a slice of meat loaf that must have been and inches and a half thick. It was great, I had no problem with it. Back on the road again and by the time we got to Bryce we must have seen at least five condors. Everyone says that you will be lucky to see one, do they not look up?

Bryce canyon is a small national park but it is wonderful. geologically it is a masterpiece of rock formations. Our first night we saw a stunning, peaceful sunset with hardly anyone around, quite the contrast to the grand canyon. the campsite was busy but well organised and to the kids delight teaming with chipmunks, ALVIN!!!!!

Our second day on Bryce, we walked for about 5 hours through the canyon looking at the crazy rock formations. this has to be one of the best walks I have ever done. It started with a pretty scary rattle snake and finished with yet another condor and everyone enjoyed it…..

The evening saw us visiting the local rodeo, a mix of cowboys being thrown off horses and bulls, cowgirls racing around the arena and cowkids being thrown off sheep, all rounded off with some scared calves being lassoed around the head nd legs in full sprint. excellent.

Next is Zion National Park, can’t wait…

So having enjoyed a day lounging by the pool in 35 degree sunshine, the Phoenix monsoon season, when any self respecting local heads for sunnier climbs (they should try England) all we had to do was pick up the RV, ideally early and drop hire car back and head on our way. Nothing is ever that easy, first we could not get the RV early, in fact with 18 vans to get out the door we were last on the list, our luck just comes in other guises. We had finally picked up the van (one for you Susie, everything just gets bigger…) and were travelling in convoy to the hire car place, me now driving the hire car, Bill, the 3 kids and all our stuff in safely in the van, when we got separated at lights heading onto the Freeway. When I said all our stuff, did I mention that included my phone and my handbag. I was now on a Freeway with absolutely no idea of where I was going or where Bill, my kids and my holiday were. Panic, no I never panic, I just chose to pull over and scream, literally and very loudly. When I had finally composed myself and remembered that I did at least have a map, like any good geography graduate, I picked the nearest landmark, in this case the airport and headed on my way. After an anxious 30 minutes, I was pulling up to the car hire place and what did I see in front of me turning in, a huge camper van (told you our luck came in other guises).

My dad is always telling me to save words like “amazing, awesome, spectacular” for occasions when I really need them. Seeing the Grand Canyon in all its spectacular, awesome, majesty brought a lump to my throat. The rest of the day was spent hopping on and off the great shuttle bus, exploring the Rim trail. Now when they say Rim Trail, they really do mean it. With literally feet between the gravel path and certain death off the edge of the Canyon, I did at times wonder whether this was really meant as a family trail. Despite all my parental anxiety it was a lovely walk taking in all the splendour of the Canyon and the Colorado river.

London to Phoenix

Woken early by impatient and excited children can’t really wait myself but there is too much to do……

Drive to Heathrow with plenty of time, even the crappy M25 can’t dent my mood. Thanks to grandma for taking us there and taking our first holiday family photo.

The flight is about as good as a ten hour flight can be and the times are all a bit strange, permanent daylight. To fight the tedium and memories of two truly awful meals, why do they bother trying something fancy when all they need to do give me gin and tonic, I look for the longest film available. Ahh The Hobbit 3 great. watched the first and last two minutes, must remember that for the flight home when I need to sleep.

Get to the hotel with a car and have a couple of beers before passing out. all in all pretty good. oh yes, its HOT.

Phoenix to the Grand Canyon

HOT HOT HOT goodness me its it melting hot. 5 am and we are all awake and its damn hot. siobhan has sowed the seeds of a swim before breakfast in one of the many pools at our hotel. Unbelievably the pool next to our room opens at 5am so we go down at around 6 and yes the water is warm and lovely and this seems to be pretty much the best way to start the wind down week. Breakfast is bready and coffee by the pool.

The water resort is not the best but you can’t have everything so we take a cruise around Phoenix. Jeez its hot. Lunch in an air conditioned bar that boasts “The worlds largest selection of draft beers” 200 hundred in total, I try 2……

Monday morning comes and its the day to leave Phoenix and get to the grand Canyon. Heavy rains have washed out the I10, the link between Phoenix and California, so not may RVs have returned. This means we cannot get our truck until 3pm. we make the best of it by doing some shopping first. We end up at a Food City which is a strange mix of American sugar and Mexican tortillas. Every aisle has some kind of two litre radioactive soft drink and corn tortillas. One deal shows that a 2 litre bottle of coke costs $1.45 but buy 6 and it comes down to $0.75 per bottle. Who buys 12 litres of coke? even for a big party?

Shopping done, I got root beer! And in the RV by 4pm now off to the airport to drop of the hire car, that went really smoothly, I will leave Siobhan to explain that.

and we are off!! Big RV bigger than the last one and the information video you have to watch shows how easy it is to knock the back of the van off if you turn too close to objects so for me every petrol station is fear and slow manoeuvres.

5 hours later, 9.50pm in the dark and I am very very slowly reversing into a small camping spot. sleep…..

The grand canyon

Well, the pictures and the travel blurb don’t really prepare you for it. a quick bus ride from the camp site and its just there, no warning in the geography, no changes of scenery, just a massive hole in the ground that is simply breath taking, as far as a landscape is concerned I have never seen anything like it….

The Campsite is pretty good too!

it was a warm Saturday and I was all set to go on holiday I was very excited because we were going to America it was our first time going

we got in the car when we got to the airport we had enough time to have lunch so we went to Giraffe I had chicken nuggets and chips after that we got on the

plain it was a10 hour flight me and Izaak took a selfie and we saw Greenland

one day parsed and we went to the grand Canyon it was amazing and terrifying it was an awesome view.

Mummy’s account

After the most awful 9 hour flight to Chicago less than a month before, air travel was the bit of our adventure I dreaded most. I had forgotten that we needed to battle the M25, and all its queues before we even got that far. Having finally got on the plane, after picking the slowest queue to board, we started taxing as the pilot announced that the entertainment system had gone down and was being looked at….11 hours with no movies…at least Mae had a camera….

(it came back online in case you were wondering). The highlights of the next 11 hours were the snack box, yes I kid you not, why do airlines try to produce cordon bleu meals, when the sight of a humous pot, nachos and a kit kat was heaven and the beautiful landscape of Greenland

I asked myself how I had managed a number of trans-atlantic flights and had never seen it before, perfect u-shaped valleys, glaciers and terminal moraines, took me back to Kings, the lovely Jude and physical geography lectures, one of the 8 hours a week we had to attend – those were the days.

Izaak Says

It was a flight i will remember for the rest of my life.

I sat down on my seat and was excited and already fiddling with my TV looking at films then a moment of despair came the TVs stopped working I couldn’t bare the thought of no TV for 10 hours. Flying over greenland 3 hours in it was beautiful the mountain range was memorising. After a 3 hour sleep with 1 hour left I was board, really board. the last hour took forever and when we touched down in Phoenix I was relieved and tired I stepped out of the airport and a wave of heat hit me and it was boiling dad said around 35 degrees. Finally we got to the hotel in I fell into a deep, deep, deep sleep.