Arizona Vacation

For Amy's and my birthday, I made surprise arrangements for a short vacation over to Arizona. We left the kids with my parents and it was the first time we've been away from both of them for more than a few hours. We had a great time! (Not because the kids were gone.)

   Here is Jack (not missing us) and having some serious fun playing in the stream at Grammy and Grandaddy's house!

Our first stop was an old copper mining ghost town north of Phoenix called Jerome. We stayed in the old hospital that was abandoned for decades and then converted into a hotel a few years ago. It's rumored to be highly haunted and some of the ghost hunting shows on TV have done investigations here! This was the first shot of the Jerome Grand Hotel as we pulled up...

The back side of the hotel: totally creepy looking. Amy was getting a little nervous and starting to freak out here! I'm pretty sure she was calling her mommy.

Old scary organs in the halway? Of course!

They had a haunted tour of the hotel that included various ghost hunting gadgets that we got to keep in our room all night. Guess how much sleep we got? Here I am registering some "activity" on my meter.

The tour was before dinner, so it wasn't very late, but we were a fairly large group making a lot of noise in the hallways. At one point, an older woman who was staying in one of the rooms opened her door and peered out at us. I calmly walked over to her and then scanned her up and down with my ghost meter. She must have known what we were up to because she scowled at me and said, "Not yet, buddy!" Pretty funny.

Our room was in the old psych ward of the hospital and was supposed to be one of the two most haunted rooms in the place because of "unusual" deaths. We opened it up for everyone else on the tour to take a look.

There was lots of interest in our room as everyone's ghost-gadgets were going crazy!

After the tour we were getting ready for dinner and "talking" to one of the known ghosts in our room, Gerthie-May. Suddenly, and for no explainable reason, the blanket that was laying across the foot of the bed slid off and down to the floor in front of both of our eyes! Here is Amy investigating the situation immediately afterward. A gust of wind with all the windows and doors closed? Funny trick played by the bell hop at the front desk? Intense paranormal activity??? We may never know for sure!

Here is the town of Jerome the next morning with the hotel clearly in the center. Please put the appropriate emphasis on "the next morning" since we are both still alive!

After visiting some Indian ruins, we drove forever to get to our next destination. I felt like Chevy Chase in Vacation because I was very intent on visiting the world's largest natural travertine arch! It was pretty neat, though. Even Amy (after having a very negative attitude during the ride there) had to admit it. The arch was HUGE and this was the view from the top.

We had to hike down a very steep trail to get to the bottom. This is the point where I learned that Amy does not like hiking. I try to learn at least one new thing every day.

At the very bottom.

We stopped on the way back at the site of some ancient cave-dwellers. This was really impressive.

After an already big day, we made it to the Grand Canyon just in time to see the sunset.

The next day was my birthday, so to celebrate we got up at some ridiculous time of the morning to see the sunrise on the Grand Canyon.

It was very dramatic and worth the lack of sleep!

Then we spent the afternoon in Flagstaff and then drove down to Sedona. Amy is ready to pack up and move here!

The clouds came in and we didn't get quite the sunset we were hoping for, but the view from our hotel balcony was still pretty fantastic. What a great birthday trip for both of us!