Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon

Zion National Park

                We ran out of time to type so here are the pictures..... they mostly speak for themselves.

                                                                            Zion Trolley

                                                                    Grand Canyon!

Eastbound Day 1

We are heading East again! 

                                 Dump station with a playground.... err.... hay bales actually. =)

Sleepy Haven.

                         The long road home. We're starting to look forward to getting home quite a lot.

                                     No.... this isn't a picture of an earthquake- this picture was taken with the fish                                 eye camera effect =) Notice the different shades of blue in the sky!

                                             

Mesa Verde National Park

State: South Western Colorado.

Place: Mesa Verde National Park 

Scenery: similar to Arizona  

Elevation: 8000 feet above sea level- and we are still going up. 

Caution: not a ride for those with a weak constitution, those faint of heart, and those who dislike eating lunch flying around sharp corners. 

                                            The highest point in the park ( o good we are finally at the top).

  The adventurous one. How close can you get to falling till you actually fall?

                            Here it is- the main attraction at Mesa Verde - The Cliff Dwellings See those tiny buildings in the middle of the picture (maybe you can click on it to make it bigger) ? About 600 years ago the natives built homes their out of stone and adobe, It is believed that thousands more natives lived on top of the plateau and farmed the land. There were numerous cliff villages built along the face of the mountain, underneath overhangs, This would have been cool in the summer and warm in the winter, good protection from enemies and not a very nice place to raise little kids we suppose.

All the buildings are still the originals, and only some minor supports have been added. Archaeologists are still busy digging around and looking for evidence.... of something.

                          Daniel captured a picture of some cliff dwellers that have survived!
   Disclaimer; they have adopted modern clothes in order to be accepted by modern culture. They  realized that loin cloths are not looked upon very favorably anymore.

                                               Until next time, the Ancient Martins

Colorado Rockies and Focus on the Family

The Colorado Rockies were probably the most magnificent and breathtaking mountains we've driven over. 

                              A wider selection of trees... some of them changing colors.... steep mountains ... and very windy roads.

                                These two monkeys .... =) Haven has done so well buckled in her car seat for long hours. She loves to color and drink milk. When she needs something she calmly yells at the top of her lungs, "Mommy! MOMMY I NEED YOU!!!!" sometimes adding a " FOR ME!" at the end to be extra clear. =) If she gets too bored she likes to throw things off the edge of her seat onto the floor, take off her clothing or wave a crayon out the open window threateningly, =)

                                            It rained Sunday....

                                            Focus on the Family Welcome Center- Monday afternoon.
                                         We enjoyed visiting Whit's End- the Adventures in Odyssey part.
                                          Meet Connie, Mr. Whittaker, Holly and Lucy. =)

                                               

                                                     

Whit's End was geared more towards little kids- Haven loved the kids corner!

We are currently trucking East- planning on being home by the weekend! 

Thanks for your prayers !

Saturday

Driving through Arizona and into Colorado this Saturday. 

Good morning Sunshine =) The mornings are often chilly and the windows foggy till the sun comes out- then the day gets warm.

                                              Wo! Was that really outside our windows? I thought seeing stuff like this was especially neat because it differs just a little bit from Lancaster, PA. =)

              Anna... with the weight of a mountain on her shoulders. Just kidding. =) We stopped along the road and took pictures with giant boulders placed on top of each other.

                            God's creation is incredible... and different .... and beautiful ....every place we go!

Bryce Canyon

Wednesday we visited Bryce Canyon, Arizona. An amazing place, Bryce provided different views of the cool red rock towers in the canyon.

The first overlook we went to. Using the camera we could zoom up on trails you can barely see on the picture above and see ant sized people hiking the bottom of the canyon. It was hard to realize how big it was. If you through a rock as hard as you could it helped you realize how far it was to the bottom....but of course we know that you shouldn't throw rocks because they might land on peoples heads. =)

    Hmm.. can't crop this picture. O well. That nice ladies shoulder is the wife of the kind man who took our picture. =)

Next we took a walk down to the bottom of the canyon. It was about one mile and was a cool loop down slippery sandy switchbacks to the part of the canyon bottom and back up a trail to the top again. The view from the top was amazing and it was really neat to go to the bottom next and look up! A whole different view entirely, surrounded by huge walls of red rock.

Finding shelter from the harsh conditions.
Just kidding. =) It was a beautiful day but the shade of these cool little overhangs was welcome.

    After we were done at Bryce we headed over to the coral pink sand dunes. We agreed that orange better describes their color but still.... this was so much fun! The sand on these dunes is super soft because the wind blowing the sand around selects only the finest particles. The larger ones stay at one place and the tinier ones are blown far away as dust. By the way... the top of that there sand dune is much higher than it looks-and climbing in sand is much harder than it sounds. =)

We found a campground for the night and showers to wash the sand out of our hair.

That's all for now =)

Flagtail Fire Tower

After finishing the butchering on Monday afternoon Wayne and Reba took us to the Flagtail fire tower outside of Seneca, Oregon. The view, simply, was amazing. The fire tower workers were even there and gave us a tour of how the tower operates! It was very fascinating! Oregon is just a gorgeous and awesome place.

                                                                  Looking down :)

Well that about concludes our time in Oregon! We were also generously invited to Wayne's place for the night and enjoyed two great meals while we were there. In the morning we headed south down to Bryce Canyon but we will post about that another time!

In conclusion our time in Oregon was really just great and the fellowship with other like-minded believers was very refreshing after travelling solid for almost three weeks! Thank you again Wayne and Reba, Leland and Sandra, and Jim and Jean for your wonderful hospitality! And thank you everyone else that helped make our time so great!