Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Second Half of our Vacation









We left Tombstone AZ after staying there for two days. Our next destination was Sedona, AZ. On the way back through Phoenix we stopped to see my dad's tomb plate. He's remains are at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona. It is funny, when you think of Cemeteries that hold the remains of our Veterans, you usually get a mental picture of grass and white headstones as far as the eye can see. This place is a desert, no grass in sight and no white headstones either. They have the flat grave markers instead even though there isn't any grass. (Most Cemeteries now use the flat markers so that they can just ride the mower right over everything.) We still got the same feeling though with all those markers and knowing what they gave up so that we could, well you can fill in the blank with your own thankful thoughts...








It was a nice drive to Sedona, lots of open spaces. Sedona is where my dad last lived and I took a drive past his old house. I was thinking that it would have sold and been torn down to make a newer, more modern house, but it was still there. If you ever go to Sedona you will find that the red color in the earth there is breathtaking. No pictures can do it justice, but after a couple of hours, it looses the aaawwww factor. We had heard about the vortexes that are in the area and had to check it out for ourselves. The vortexes are where there is minerals in the earth that make a type of magnetic field. People have all types of ideas about these areas. We took the animals for a hike to check one out and see what (if anything) we would feel. Well, we definitely were hot! You could feel a little something....almost like static but no shocking discharges.








The place we were excited to go to was Slide Rock! Oh, that was fun! It is a national park, so we couldn't bring the animals. It is a stream that meanders down moss covered rocks that make a natural water slide. There were a few places that you could dive into nice deep clear pools. A few of the dive areas were 10ft high. Here are a few pix of the kids and Jim having fun.






On our way home we swung through one of my old stopping grounds, Jerome. It is a mining ghost town that I have wonderful memories of. Of course, it still looks pretty much the same. We had lived in what was once a miners house. It was nice to visit and share my memories with my family.

What a fun exhausting trip!

3 comments:

The Random One said...

In that group photo, Cameron is the only one that looks really happy! lol

Skams said...

Anna doesn't look happy at all :o

Anna said...

The kind lady who was taking the picture was having problem with my camera. Just as I was going to help her, the camera took the picture. LOL It was the only picture of us all I could post...no...really.....I was getting ready to jump someone. Hehehe