Road Trip Day 2: The Grand Canyon

Before our trip I had never been to the Grand Canyon (well, I had never been anywhere in the country besides the west coast, Ohio, and South Carolina... and Chicago-- when I was only seven years old!) so it was pretty cool to see it for myself in real life. I had heard other people say it looks like a painting when you're there standing in front of it, and I have to agree with them-- it really does.

There were so many pretty wildflowers blooming all along the ridge trail of the canyon! I think I made Adam take more photos of the flowers than of the canyon itself.

Now it's time for you to meet the Japanese Good Luck Cat. The week before our trip, Adam hung out with his good friend Patrick for the last time before we moved, and they hung out on the set of a kids' TV show that Patrick is in. On that particular day, the episode being filmed was about Chinese New Year, and some of the props were these Japanese good luck cats. After the filming was finished, Patrick snagged one of the cats and gave it to Adam before we left, and Adam brought the cat along on the road trip, taking pictures of it in front of every national monument, and in each new state we visited.

Here's an example:

You've seen those kind of cats before, right? Well this cat has now seen the entire country. Ha!

Our drive out of the Grand Canyon was probably my favorite drive of the whole trip. The scenery was amazing! Our goal was to had north into Utah, but there are no bridges over the Grand Canyon, so that meant we had to drive east first, along the entire remaining length of the canyon. The canyon was beautiful, but the red cliffs on the other side of the road were equally amazing. I think we enjoyed the drive so much because we weren't expecting anything spectacular, so driving through miles and miles and miles of road with the Grand Canyon on one side and giant red cliffs on the other was a nice surprise! I think most of the land was Indian reservation land, because the only signs of civilization were trailers or tiny six-sided house every couple of miles.

We made it to southern Utah a whoooole lot later than we thought we would (for some reason, I was under the impression that our drive out of the Grand Canyon would be a two-hour drive, but, well... it was a five-hour drive. Whoops.) but we made it-- in the dark and on windy roads-- and had a cute little log cabin all to ourselves.

Tomorrow: Road Trip Day 3: I never knew how pretty Utah is!


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