Just back from a small vacation yesterday. We took the kids to see the Grand Canyon and the small town of Sedona. Just north of Sedona is Slide Rock State Park. There is a stream there that comes out of the mountain, or I should say continues through the mountain, and at this particular point runs over huge rocks worn unusually smooth, causing a sort of 'slide'. The two youngest and my wife went in the water, not for very long though. I thought the kids would find it fun, but they were either disappointed, or couldn't take the chilly water. Anyway, that's why we went through and stayed in Sedona. For the Grand Canyon we stayed in Flagstaff and ventured to the canyon from there, sampling some of the lookout points, and taking a 1 1/2 mile walk into the canyon on one of the many trails available. That was pretty cool, except that my son has this aversion to physical activity, and didn't really enjoy the walk out. It was pretty steep, and most people we met on the way down that were going the other way were huffing and taking long breaks. I'm pretty sure most of the heavy breathing was due to the altitude, which is anywhere from 7 to 8 thousand feet along the rim. He made it out ok and is none the worse for wear.

Flagstaff is a nice town, way too crowded though. Route 66 and State Highway 89A run through the town, and everyone uses them. There are a lot of people living there, and lots of tourists as well. Traffic was pretty heavy, but if you can get past that it's ok. We took the boys to the Lowell observatory, and they all got to look through the big telescope. They had it pointed at a binary star system, not an impressive sight really, what's impressive is that it can be seen at all from so far away.

For our stay in Sedona we were at Sky Ranch Lodge. Very good place to stay. It's up on a hill near the airport and has a really good view right next to it from a public lookout point. Sedona is set inside Red Rock Canyon, and you can see the whole town set inside the canyon from there. Right outside the room that night I finally sighted something I've been looking forward to since we moved to AZ, a tarantula. There was one walking along the sidewalk, and another sitting just inside a hole in the ground right outside our door. I took pictures, hope they come out.

I had a chance to listen to some books this week. After finishing The First Man in Rome finally, I went on to Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, One For the Money by Janet Evanovich, Kingdom Hospital by Eleanor Druse and some others. I'm going to have to really buckle down if I want to keep up that list of mine....