Monday - 5/21/07

After going to sleep around 12:30 a.m., the beeping alarm at 6:00 a.m. was NOT fun. We got up, though, dutifully, and loaded the rest of the bags into the car, and we were off and running at 7:15. Luckily, we never really hit too much traffic (outside of an accident near San Bernadino), and the first half of the drive was rather uneventful. We stopped to have a picnic lunch at Moabi Regional Park, just inside the California/Arizona border, then crossed over into Arizona. This was where things got interesting.

The check engine light came on in Amanda's car. Somewhere, Howard is laughing to himself (or maybe to the people around him). Nothing really seemed to be wrong, but just to be safe, we drove to the Toyota dealership in Flagstaff to have it checked out. We sat there for about 2 hours while they reset the computer in the car, which cleared everything right up, and we hightailed it up to the Grand Canyon, racing against time in order to get there before sunset. Amanda really showed her inner Ricky Bobby and got us there just under the wire.

Words really cannot describe how amazing the Grand Canyon is. We walked around Mather Point and watched the Sun go down (from the East side, unfortunately, so the view wasn't as spectacular as it could have been), but it was simply majestic. It is almost incomprehensible how something like this could just be there in the middle of the desert. We then checked into our hotel, the El Tovar lodge, and caught the season finale of Heroes (yes, I am a dork) before dinner.

We just got to our hotel in Santa Fe and finally got some internet access, so we will get the next couple of reports posted later tonight. We're starving, so we're off to dinner. Safe travels, and check back with us soon for more updates!!