The next morning we woke up and headed over to El Tovar. My best friend Kim told me it was a must to eat there. We were there before the restaurant even opened so we'd for sure get a table for breakfast.
The lobby of the hotel had this beautiful moose!
We lucked out and got a nice big round table right in the middle of the restaurant. I knew we weren't probably going to be able to get a table with a view so this felt like winning to me.
It was a bit chilly in the restaurant and the wait was a bit long, but it was so nice to have a yummy breakfast after days of eating breakfast on the run!
Of course we had to take a walk around one last time before we got on the road. It was gorgeous out!
This beautiful canyon...I can't wait to come visit again one day!
I was taking a picture when a couple came by and I asked them to take a picture of our whole family.
So nice! We got to talking to them about the rest of our trip and they told us about this castle that we should visit when we got to Death Valley, but unfortunately the road to it had gotten washed out so we weren't able to do that.
On the road to our next stop....
Meteor Crater! This isn't a National Park, but it's on the way to The Petrified Forrest so we thought it would be fun to stop and check it out. I honestly thought we would just stop and peek through the fence, but they've gotten wiser to that and put another fence up so you can't even get close to the crater to see it. You have to buy tickets now. We had drove pretty much out to the middle of no where so we weren't going to not go. It was a little over $100 for all of us to go!
They had this fun 3D type theater and interactive stuff prior to going into the seating area.
I got to sit next to my Jackers and my Zeke Man! during the movie. It was super cute!
They had a museum that you could walk through and read about all sorts of different interesting facts about meteors. Look at the size of this one...it's the largest chunk left over of the meteor that made the meteor crater.
They had a selfie area where you could take your picture and it looked like you're standing at the bottom of the meteor crater.
The pictures don't do it justice. It's 550ft deep and almost a mile wide!
It was SO incredibly HOT outside....we looked and then we went back in!
The boys had the most fun playing this game where you got to smash a meteor into earth. They got to choose what the meteor was made of, how big it was, how fast it was going and what angle it came it at. Total Destruction!
After looking through the museum portion we quickly went to the gift shop and then basically walked right out. We knew we didn't really have time to waste and we wanted to get to our next stop!
The Petrified Forest!
Let me tell you this National Park sounds way cooler than it is! I'm glad we went...it's crossed off our list, but if I had to do it over again I probably wouldn't stop there!
This is called The Painted Desert!
It's hard to get excited over colorful little hills after having just left The Grand Canyon! :)
The thing is the name of the National Park is very deceiving....we thought there'd be an actual forest!
Ella is sitting on a piece of petrified wood.
This is called The Tepees. They were really beautiful!
More petrified wood!
More Tepees!
This is the Agate Bridge. They actually poured concrete under it to keep it intact. At one point you could walk across it, but they don't let you do that anymore.
The best part about The Petrified Forest is that there was a north & south entrance....so we drove all the way to the north and then drove south through the park and then out the south entrance. No backtracking!!!
On the way to our next stop we got to see some amazing cacti forests.
We also got to travel through the Tonto National Forest which was beautiful.
Finally we arrived at our friend Miss Ellen's house.
The kids had been dying to get to Miss Ellen's house because they love her and they knew she had a pool. That's the only downside to staying in Airbnb's.
Ellen had gotten this fun blow up snake or eel thing...of course by the time my kids were done with it, it was headed for the garbage. It was fun while it lasted! :)
It was so nice to be able to sleep in a bit and not have to get up and get on the road. My plan was to use this time at Ellen's to re-coup and rest! I had no plans to get in the van and go anywhere during our full day there. It was also nice to be able to do a few loads of laundry while we were there.
The kids loved the pool!
It was HOT while we were there. It was over 100 during the day. You can see Michael sitting in the shade. It was only way you could be outside if you weren't in the pool.
Ellen lives with her son and daughter-in-law....Eric & Julie. Their backyard was a total oasis.
Jackson was hungry, but he didn't want to get out of the pool so I fed him grapes! He was stashing them in his cheeks like a....you guessed it squirrel. At one point he had 10 stuffed in there!
Ellen took some pictures of us hang out! She was just the sweetest! She had meals all planned and just wanted to make sure everything was taken care of us for us. It really was a restful time!
I didn't even remember getting in the pool until I looked at these pictures. I don't think I lasted very long!
Over to the right of the pool was a putting green!
Jack had some fun putting some balls around!
Eric even came out and joined in once he got home from work.
Such a gorgeous place and I'm so glad we got a chance to visit it because now they've moved....to MT! They actually bought 9 acres outside of Dillon, MT. They are going to have chickens, goats and horses. Hoping that next summer we'll be able to take the trailer over and visit!
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