My Vacation to Arizona (Intro Post)

Since Spring Break began my husband and I have been in Arizona. The Arizona landscape and wildlife, especially the Grand Canyon and surrounding desert lands, enforce much of what I have learned throughout my current college course in Ecology (Maintaining this blog for a few weeks is a required assignment for the course.) Later I will be discussing my trip ecologically. In this post I will be focusing on our trip itself.

On March 12th, my husband and I flew into the Phoenix airport and drove in a rented car across the Arizona desert, with mountains, buttes, and many other rock and sand formations in the distance, to a little Bed & Breakfast in Williams, Arizona. We stayed here for 4 nights. Next, we traveled to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Amazingly we were able to stay at the Maswik Lodge, a very busy lodge, ¼ mile from the rim of the Grand Canyon for 3 days. The first day went on the Grand Canyon Adventure, an all day tour that starts at Grand Canyon National Airport. This tour consisted of rides on plane, truck, raft and bus. On the plane ride we flew over a large portion of the Grand Canyon. By truck we traveled to Antelope Canyon. We were driven from Antelope Canyon to the Glen Canyon dam at Lake Powell where we smooth water rafted. Finally, we were picked up by bus and driven back to the Grand Canyon National Airport. On day three we hiked the Rim Trail and saw amazing views of the Grand Canyon but also the remains of a recent forest fire. During the next phase of our trip we drove to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon and stayed on the Hualapai Indian Reservation at the Hualapai Lodge for two short days. On the second day of our stay we woke up early for a Hualapai guided “River Runners” trip offered through the lodge on the Colorado River. River Running is an interesting way to explore the Grand Canyon, and the Hualapai Indians make a little money this way. Yesterday we drove from the West Rim of the Grand Canyon over desert and flat plains to the La Posada Hotel in Wilson, AZ. Somehow a car or gas tank exploded causing a toxic field fire that lasted most of the day. The La Posada Hotel is the last great historical railroad hotel in existence; it is also a hacienda. We hope to see the Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest over the next few days. So far, our vacation to Arizona has been filled with adventure and beautiful natural wonders.

Ecologically speaking, this trip has been rich. I hope to present some of this richness to you, my readers.