At my surprise birthday party the night before I opened a box from Nick that had a folder of papers in it. The top paper was a "Grand Canyon Trip Itinerary". It had an hour by hour schedule of what we were doing for the next two days- even complete with what I should wear, menus of where we were going to eat, and the weather forecasts! It was great. I am always dreading how I plan everything, which is why this in itself was the best birthday present I could be given! We drove up to Sedona after a morning of getting pedicures and stayed at the Orchard Inn. Sedona is such a neat town, and somehow we had never been there before. After we stayed the night there we took a famous Pink Jeep Tour to the Grand Canyon! What a great weekend.
The itinerary. Gotta love that it even has an objective on it :)
The views driving into Sedona
Bell Rock in the background is famous for its energy vortex.
When we got to the hotel, I walked in to this on the table! Seriously, the birthday surprises were never ending!
The view from our hotel balcony
Sedona's red rocks
We decided to go explore the town. There were lots of art and jewelry shops and I bought a candle made of a recycled wine bottle.
Downtown Sedona
There were javelina everywhere. I got chased by one before while on a walk outside of our neighborhood, and I swear since then I see them everywhere. haha.
Even found a stuffed animal of a javelina
The next day were were going to take a jeep tour--so of course we had to stop and take the mandatory tourist photo
We finished exploring and went back to the town to get ready for dinner. Here's my 30th birthday pose :)
Thank goodness for timers on camera or we would never have pictures together. This was a good one for the first try!
We ate at a steakhouse called the "Cowboy Club". I had a cream soda made with real cane sugar. Ohhh sooo good!
Cactus fries anyone? There were surprisingly good, but what deep friend doesn't taste delicious?
Yum...my favorite part was the ice cream sundae's afterwards.
We had such a beautiful Saturday, but we knew the weather was going to change for Sunday. So when we woke up to all this fog and rain we tried to put our smiles on
Waiting for the jeep tour trying to stay dry
Despite the rain we stayed dry in this serious jeep, it was about a two hour drive through the canyons to get to the Grand canyon!
The drive up cottonwood canyon was sure foggy but still gorgeous.
We stopped at a neat trading post along the way with every stuffed animal you could imagine.
But once we got to the National park, there were real animals everywhere!
According to the tour guide the rain and fog brings out the colors of the rock more in the canyon, but the fog sure didn't make it easy to see
We made it here. Nick had never been to the Grand Canyon, and I had not been since I was a kid.
"Falling" off the edge!
We stopped for lunch at the "El Tovar" lodge and hotel. It was the original hotel at the Grand Canyon. I've heard my grandmother always talk about this place. It as fun to see it and enjoyed a great meal here.
When we walked out from lunch and took a short walk to the canyon, this is what we saw! Ahh, the canyon was being swallowed up by fog. It was so crazy. It started pouring rain and the forecast only called for it to get worse. I'm so glad we got the pictures early in the day at the first stop.
Haha, would you believe this is us sitting on the ledge of the canyon!! You cannot see anything behind us! Thankfully the guide arranged for us to stop at the National Park entrance where we saw the IMAX movie about the Grand Canyon since we were not able to see the rest of it in real life. Oh well, I guess we will have to go back again.
On our drive home we stopped to see the church built in the rock. It was really need to see, and I think I read it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Neat rock formations all around
The guy who planned it all!
What a great birthday weekend!! I'm so grateful for Nick and how much time and energy he spent so that this weekend would be so much fun and all about me and kept a surprise. I'm one lucky girl and excited for my 30's.
