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Travel Log 13: Weathering The Storm
A challenging time in Arizona
Being in Arizona for the last few weeks has been not at all what we expected. When we thought of Arizona we were thinking deserts, but staying near Flagstaff (with an elevation of 7,000 feet) we’ve had more snow than our family back in Pennsylvania! It just goes to show that stereotypes that we get in our heads aren’t always very accurate.
Table of contents
- Off to a Bad Start
- Snowed in
- Visiting Grand Canyon
- Down the Mountain
- Surprise!
- Paddington 2 Movie Night
- Showed In… Again
- Visiting Phoenix
- Visiting Sunset Crater Volcano
- Sick… Again
- A Trip To The ER
- Bearizona
Off to a Bad Start
On our way from California to Arizona my stomach started feeling odd. Turns out I had some sort of stomach bug as I threw up the next morning. Thankfully we made it to our Arizona Airbnb and got mostly unloaded before I was out of commission.
Thankfully only one of our kids followed my lead in getting sick. So it was only a few days that we were unable to enjoy our new location.
Snowed in
Unfortunately, after Emalyn and I were feeling better northern Arizona was subject to some snow storms. Being from Pennsylvania we didn’t think much of it as we get snow all the time during the winters. At one point we measured the snow to be over 12 inches high in the backyard.
But, unlike our experiences from PA, major highways around Flagstaff closed due to the snow and accidents. This left us stranded and unable to go anywhere for a few days and changed our plans to visit the Grand Canyon.
But we made the best of it by playing board games (like Katie and my favorite, Terraforming Mars) and doing a book “escape room”. The kids enjoyed it somewhat, but it doesn’t quite capture the same feelings as an actual escape room. Although we are interested in trying some other kinds of “at home escape rooms”.
Visiting Grand Canyon
When the snow melted some and the roads opened back up, we finally got to visit the Grand Canyon. We were able to get in free with the 4th-grader national parks pass. The middle three kids did the Junior Ranger program and enjoyed making observations around the park.
We went to different viewpoints for some impressive views. While the roads were plowed, not all the paths were cleared of snow. So at some places we had to trudge through the snow to get to the overlooks. This was especially annoying when going to the Desert View Watchtower as it was a long walk through the snow to get there.
The views from the watchtower weren’t all that much better than the views from the ground, but the inside of the watchtower is decorated in honor of different Native American tribes and was cool to view.
Down the Mountain
An hour’s drive south and 3,000 feet down the mountain we escaped the cold and snow by visiting the Out of Africa Wildlife Park.
The park is rather large and we started our visit by walking to the other side so we could see their “Tiger Splash Show”. There are shuttles that drive around the park, but we didn’t want to miss the show by waiting for a ride.
For the tiger show, several zoo keepers got a tiger to chase after a toy that they had on ropes. The idea was to get the tiger into the pool. However, the older tiger that they were working with was hesitant to actually get into the water. It might have been better if the tiger was more energetic, but it was still fun to watch.
As part of admission to the park, we also got a safari ride through a section of the park. We got to see a bunch of different animals and feed the giraffes. The giraffes would stick their whole heads into the bus to get to the food being offered.
On the way back from the wildlife park we stopped at the Montezuma Castle National Monument. It is a large stone pueblo built into a cliff which is an impressive feat for its time.
We didn’t spend a whole lot of time there since there isn’t really anything besides the “castle” and you can’t go up into it. But it was a nice stop and made use of our 4th-grader pass again.
Surprise!
We have some great news! Katie is blessed to be pregnant again with our 6th child! It is a bit unexpected and it does change our traveling plans some. But we still plan to travel more before the baby comes.
Paddington 2 Movie Night
Between snowstorms, we had a movie night where we watched Paddington 2. We watched the first Paddington movie last month and are planning to watch the third one soon to complete the trilogy. It is a cute family movie that the kids all enjoyed.
We did themed food for dinner as part of our movie night.
Katie and the kids made these cool little orange peel boats that had blue jello in them and were topped with a teddy gram!
Showed In… Again
There has been some weird weather across the country this month. In Flagstaff, the weird weather was snow, again. And the roads were shut down, again. Thankfully we were able to move our tickets for Medieval Times from Saturday to Sunday.
Visiting Phoenix
Originally we were going to go stay a few weeks around Phoenix, but with Katie being pregnant we are adjusting our plans on the fly. So we took a day and went down to Phoenix to visit a few of the places that we had on our list. And, on the way we got to see fields of huge saguaro cacti!
Pangaea Land of Dinosaurs
Our first stop of the day was the Pangaea Land of the Dinosaurs
It is a small dinosaur exhibit, but they have an app that you can do a scavenger hunt. The kids enjoyed scanning the QR codes and hunting for the answers to the trivia questions. As part of our admission, we also got a few tokens to their arcade. After the arcade, the kids got to do a dinosaur dig and after revealing their toy dino skeleton they got to wrap them in clay to create their own dino.
OdySea Aquarium
After visiting the past we went under the sea at the OdySea Aquarium. The aquarium was having a special mermaid event so the girls were excited to meet a few of the mermaids. And one of the mermaids was underwater in one of the tanks.
The aquarium had a few unique features that we haven’t seen elsewhere. First off, the bathrooms had a window into a shark tank! And near the end, they had revolving seating where you rotated around to see different habitats. Kind of like the “Carousel of Progress” at Disney World.
Medieval Times
To end the day we had dinner at Medieval Times. It was nostalgic for Katie and myself as we had gone to a Medieval Times on our honeymoon some 13+ years ago. The kids had a great time cheering for our blue knight and watching the performance.
Visiting Sunset Crater Volcano
For an afternoon we visited Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument (the 4th-grader pass was really handy for this trip!).
I thought it would be cool to walk around the cooled lava fields. The kids just humored me on our short hikes. We did get to see a cool lava cove formation on one of the walks.
After visiting the volcano we took a scenic drive up to Wupatki National Monument. There we got to explore a stone pueblo house. The kids enjoyed that much more than the lava fields.
There are several different pueblos that you can visit in the park. The large one that the park is named after, Wupatki, was just a short walk from the visitor center.
At the Wupatki pueblo, there was a geological blowhole (also called a breathing cave). The kids thought it was really fascinating and it blew their hair up when they stuck their heads over it.
Sick… Again
And if one round of sickness wasn’t enough, 2 more kids came down with a stomach virus. They probably picked it up from our Phoenix trip 😒. And then a few days later another kid and Katie also got sick. It seems like we were sick more than we were healthy at Flagstaff!
A Trip To The ER
Completely unrelated to our sickness, we had to visit the Flagstaff ER one night. Adeline (2) somehow slipped off the couch and smashed her forehead on the coffee table. She was a real trooper about getting stitches. 8 stitches later we went home to go to bed. It was quite the experience!
Bearizona
Our last stop in Arizona was the Bearizona Wildlife Park. And true to its name we did see quite a few bears in their drive-through. Plus there were young bears in the walk-through part of the park. Besides bears, they have a bunch of different animals like mountain goats, red foxes, and white bison (to name a few).
