Kleinland: Babymoon

Dan and I just got back from vacation, a wonderful 4 days at the grand canyon and sedona. We had a spectacular time, and despite threats of bad weather (and even seeing snow when we got off the plane in Flagstaff), we had beautiful sunny skies most of the time! My goal was to go someplace that was NOT kid friendly, and relax as much as possible, since who knows when the next chance to do that will be. We did a lot of hiking and photographing, both of which are kid-friendly activities, but it was hard to pass those up someplace as scenic as where we were.

Dan brought two SLR cameras on this trip (it's complicated, don't ask), so I got to have my turn as photographer - which means this is possibly the first/only trip where Dan is documented as well as me!

Phase One: The anti-gravitational law
Our first stop was the grand canyon. I discovered two things here: 1) It really is grand, there is no comparison to anything else I've ever seen in my life; and 2) whoever wrote the gravitational law along the lines of "what goes up, must come down" was NOT thinking of the grand canyon. Because at the grand canyon, the law is "what goes down, must come back up!"

We hiked the first part of a trail that leads all the way to the canyon floor. Although we were both feeling great, seeing the people huffing and puffing on their way back up made me nervous, and we turned back a bit earlier than we probably would have otherwise. Which turned out to be a good decision! Because later that day we were up for another (flatter) hike along the rim, which was also marvelous.

Dan demonstrating someone who did not pay attention to the warning!

Part of what made the grand canyon fun was being so close to something so much bigger than my 31-week belly.

Dan, my pack-mule, found a soft rock with a great view.

I was exhausted by the end. The hiking combined with the elevation probably had something to do with it. If the rim is at 7071 feet elevation, that makes it about 7070 feet higher than Santa Barbara! Plus or minus a few depending on the tides. Hopi point is where we both swear to have seen a *glimpse* of a California Condor, an amazingly large, endangered bird which has been reintroduced to the area lately. We sat around for ages waiting for it to come back so we could take its photo, but no luck!