Our Amazing Arizona {and Utah, and Colorado} Adventure!! part 3

June 2, 2010

woke up to this.. :)

Did you know there's a big ol' crater between

Flagstaff & .. well, somewhere??

Well, there is, and we went to it!!

{those of you who know Davy,

know this is right in his wheelhouse..}

Flashy building, right?

AND crazy name..

Apparently, this baby is:

1 mile across

570 feet deep

3 miles around

Here we are listening to Eduardo,

our tour guide..

{he was quite entertaining..}

The Walker's..

{in a photo that doesn't do the

crater justice..}

Okay, I won't bore you with any more of that..

But we were there for 2 hours..

Next, we continued on to..

The Petrified Forest

{and the Painted Desert}

Entering the park..

You've gotta love self portraits..

at an overlook..

Daddy & Adi decided to walk/jog

to the next overlook..

Trying to get creative..

They had a few sites with pictographs..

Davy decided this one was a depiction

of a man being carried away

by a large bird..

The overlook at the pictographs..

I think Savannah is a bit tired

of posing for pictures..

The next area was called

Newspaper Rock..

It was covered with THOUSANDS of pictographs..

But, they were way off a cliff,

and difficult to see..

Hooray for the telephoto lens!

Using the sometimes helpful scopes..

Look!

Savannah found a mountain!!

{The Tepees}

I think this was supposed to be a train..

{see the petrified wood in the background?}

I can't decide if this is

cute or disturbing..

{you don't have to answer that..}

This place was huge..

And really beautiful,

I'm afraid pictures don't do it justice..

And wow!

There is a lot of petrified wood strewn about..

Here is where I will make my quick plug for

the National Parks

Junior Ranger programs..

They will give your kids these booklets

to fill out..

They're not as easy as you'd think!

But at the end,

they get sworn in

AND

receive a badge,

and depending on the park

a patch, too!!

We did it in 3 of the 4 we visited..

They loved it!!