We arrive in Grand Canyon National Park!

Last night Melissa and Laura dragged their sleeping bags out on the terrace in Sedona and slept out under the stars. It was a beautiful night and all was peaceful and quiet.  At first I couldn't believe they would choose that hard floor over the soft beds, especially since we had been at a KOA for two nights, but then I remembered the nights I had slept out under the stars, and I got it.  Little did we realize how the stars would entertain us the following night.

So sad to leave Sedona, but so much adventure awaits us.  We wind our way back through Oak Creek Canyon, past Flagstaff until we saw Sunset Volcano Crater park, which was a 30 something mile scenic drive through an area where a volcano exploded 1000 years ago and you could see lots of evidence of lava everywhere.  Big lava rocks and the dirt was black.  It was neat looking.  The drive winded through the desert next, and we had views of the  Painted Desert from our car.  A very nice drive.  Then we continued on to the Grand Canyon, and stopped at a couple overlooks before heading to our lodge to check in.  The Canyon is magnificent....so large it is hard to take in the size of it all.  Shortly after getting out of the car, I found I was quite dizzy from the altitude and had to stop for a minute.  7000 feet up!  I adjusted pretty quickly though.

Starry, Starry night.......

We got settled in, had dinner at the cafeteria, and headed over to Yavapai Observation Lookout for the sunset and the "Star Gazing Party."  I had read about this on the internet--once a year a bunch of amateur astronomers bring their enormous telescopes (literally-some of these things were so big you had to climb a ladder to look into them) to the Grand Canyon and give a slide show and let people look through the telescopes.  So I wanted to check it out and it was way, way beyond my wildest expectations.  We saw Saturn with its rings and its moon Titan, we saw a star cluster, a panetary nebula, a ring nebula, a quasar, two galaxies, a satellite.  It was just the coolest thing I have ever seen (notice the astronomer geek is back in full force).  Melissa said,"to hell with theatre, I want to become an astronomer! (I guess the astronomer geek gene runs in the family!) Laura loved it too.  She had never seen so many stars in her life.  They showed us Jupiter, the Milky Way, all kinds of constellations.  If we saw nothing else at the Grand Canyon, it would have been worth it to come here just to see the incredible night sky with all those stars, and to see them so close up.  We even saw a shooting star.  We just got back and I am still high from the experience.  Oh, the things we miss by living our ordinary existence in suburbia.

So another day ends in gratitude.  How blessed we are.  Sending blessings to all of you,

Love, Beth