On Christmas evening we arrived at Phoenix. The day before we had stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up microwavable mashed potatoes, turkey, and vegetables so we would be able to have turkey dinner in our hotel room. It tasted a lot better than we thought it would and the turkey was ready in 4 minutes in stead of 4 hours! The hotel was a dive but it's not where you are, it's who you're with.

So... we got to the Grand Canyon... After a year and a half of dreaming and wondering when we could get back to see it. We were soooo excited. ..Um, yeah. It was a little snowy when we got there. The sun had set but it wasn't completely dark. We stepped into our hotel room to find it freezing cold. No one had turned on the heat. It took two hours before it was warm enough for us to take off our coats. We decided to try on some "good attitudes" and make the best of it.
Christmas morning we woke up to more snow. At least a foot of it on the roof across the parking lot. We had breakfast and checked the weather forecast, hhmmm not getting better for a while. We decided on a late check out and quickly got our stuff packed back into the car. Then we went to take a look at what we couldn't see. It was actually pretty amazing. (Cold too) we took a few pictures and hopped back in the car and headed south to Phoenix. Quite the weather change in 5 hours.

Christmas Day

Icicles on a cabin at the Grand Canyon.


Yeah, snowy and cold. We left Calgary for this?

Arriving at the Grand Canyon

Christmas Eve evening we found Santa was manning the east gate of the Grand Canyon.
The best view we had of the Canyon was after sunset on Christmas Eve.
The cow was amused by this sign just before getting to the park.

Waterholes Canyon, Arizona

I don't think they should have parked there.

This place is crazy.

Horseshoe Bend, Arizona

Leaving Zion

At the hotel

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

You wouldn't believe the beauty to be found in Zion.
I didn't realize what this rock looked like until after I looked at the picture.

Zion National Park

One of four windows in the tunnel which was over a mile long.

View from our hotel room

This is us blogging and facebooking just so you can know what we are up to. This is at Mountain View Lodge at Zion National Park, southern Utah.
In the hot tub.
No, I'm not telling the other drivers "peace". We were driving directly into the setting sun and I was trying to block the sun from my eyes (one finger for each eye) and still be able to see the road. It was about 75% effective. You should try it sometime. It's a little difficult.

Still some snow, but quite a bit warmer.

Yes, it was cold here too.

Today we drove to Mountain View Lodge on the south side of Zion National Park, Utah. It's a very nice place. We got here after dark so we will be checking out the area tomorrow. We tried out the pool and the hot tub. They are outdoors. The pool was very cold and the hot tub was, you guessed it, hot. We drove through a few mountain passes, going as high as 6600'. Well above anything on the Trans Canada and without the snow-packed highways. Very nice!

We have started our road trip. We left home at 9:20 this AM and got to Pocatello, Idaho at9:30 PM. Tomorrow we have about a 7 hour drive to get to Zion National Park where we are planning to spend two days. We will do some pictures tomorrow evening...