Our Big Arizona Road Trip Part Four

Hey Y'all... it seems to be taking me forever to update about our trip..... I have been crazy busy doing assignments etc for my Yoga Teacher Training course... Taking today off anything Yoga related.... erm... I bet that doesn't happen though....hahahaha..... ( I wrote this on Monday... and yes I did end up do something Yoga related!! )

Sooooooo we left Monument Valley bright and early.  It was my turn to drive.... was about a 4 hour drive to Sedona which wasn't bad.  If it had been a 4 hour drive in the UK... it would feel like a very long time.... but in the USA, it is so much easier to drive than here.

When we arrived.. our room wasn't ready ...so we had to wait.  Granted we were a little early.... but official check-in time arrived and our room still wasn't ready and we ended up waiting and waiting and waiting.  We also must have been given the worst room in the hotel.  The inside was nice enough but just the location of the room wasn't to good. Oh well... it is not like we spend a great deal of time in the room.

Some of the views from the hotel were spectacular though.

Loved the 'X' in the sky, we both said that it must be a sign :)

Sedona is very pretty.... though we did both think the town centre is very commercialized.  Though we did love this store.

 Lala has been to Sedona before but like 20 years ago... She says it has changed sooooooo sooooo much.

So what did we do whilst we were there? We stayed 4 nights and so did lots of things.  One evening we went on the Sunset Vortex Tour with Red Rock Jeep Tours.

Our tour guide, Mark was fantastic.  He took us to 3 different places where the Earth's energy was the strongest.  The first was up by the airport where he explained  Vortexes  and Chakras and asked us if we were working anything.  We had to find a spot there and meditate. It actually made me feel very sick.  In fact, since arriving in Sedona, I was feeling nauseous.  Mark explained that is was the energy overload.  It actually made sense as I have been working on my heart chakra for a while and if my chakra is not open... a lot of energy is gonna make me feel sick.  Mark did some grounding with me and I felt so much better.

We then went onto Red Rock Crossing.  We loved it here.  So so beautiful.  We meditated by the stream.  I kept getting the urge to get in the water.  I didn't of course.  Lala loved it.... so much so we went back again the next day.

The final place was up at what is called Rachel's Knoll.  You can read the sad story of Rachel's Knoll here .  It is so sad that her children sold the land and it was made into a Golf Club.  Luckily though, the public are allowed access to the Knoll. It is from here we saw the sun setting

One day we drove to the ghost town of Jerome.  What a cute lovely town.  Lots of independent arty shops.  I was happy cos when we went in one shop, the was the most beautiful copy of The Bhagavad Gita.  It wa the only copy in the shop and kind of felt like it was there waiting for me :)  Here are some photos.

One of our favourite places was the Amitabha Stupa.  So beautiful and so peaceful.

We visisted a wonderful Arts & Crafts Village called Tlaquepaque

We also took a trip to Montezuma's Castle  - which are old cliff-dwellings and also went and visited Camp Verde

Sedona was lovely... but we decided 4 nights was probably too much....

And we can't end this post without something on food.  We loved Simon's Hotdogs. All his hotdogs can be served Vegetarian and Vegan

Next stop... Tucson.....

Our Big Arizona Road Trip - Part Three

Two Nights in Monument Valley

We ate our last breakfast in The Grand Canyon at El Tovar.  It was yummie :)

We hit the road straight after.  It was Lala's turn to drive so I could sit back and chill out and enjoy the views.  It was just over a 4 hour drive.  We got confused as we forgot there is an hours time difference between The Grand Canyon and Monument Valley...so we were expecting it to take us 5 hours.  It was a lovely drive especially once we were approaching Monument Valley.  The scenery was stunning

Monument Valley in the distance (excuse the dirty windscreen)

Monument Valley is on The Navajo Indian Reservation.  We stayed at The View Hotel.  It is the only hotel within Monument Valley.  As the name suggests... the hotel had views and OMG.... the views were just amazing.  All rooms had this view

and in the morning the sunrise was just so so beautiful

We stayed 2 nights there and so we had one full day.  We went on a tour of Monument Valley.  We booked it through Navajo Spirit Tours.  They run a few different tours - we chose their Monument Valley one which was a whole day tour with a guide around Monument Valley including the restricted parts. 

We thought The Grand Canyon had the Wow factor....but Monument Valley had the WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW factor :) It is just so so beautiful.... so stunning.

Here are some photos.... and they still do not capture its total beauty.

Can you see the Indian's head?

drawings in the stone

Our guide Harry was excellent.  He told us lots of little stories and played the flute for us. 

A lot of movies are filmed in Monument Valley 

some of which :

Stage Coach staring John Wayne

Thelma & Louise

Back to The Future III

Mission Impossible II

Forrest Gump

and many more 

Here is a photo of a traditional Indian house - a Hogan. 

and of course I can't finish this post without posting some food :)

Navajo Blue Corn Taco

Our Big Arizona Road Trip - Part Two

Three Nights at The Grand Canyon

After a long journey and thankfully no more car trouble,  we entered The Grand Canyon National Park. You have to pay an entrance fee of €25. The first thing we saw were some Elk

We arrived at our accommodation up in The Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim. We stayed at Thunderbird Lodge. Originally we wanted to stay at El Tovar but it was fully booked and on trip advisor Thunderbird scored higher than Bright Angel. So Thunderbird Lodge it was.  It turned out they were all next door to one another anyways. To look at on the outside it reminded me of a university hall of residence hahahaha... 

photo source

 BUT the rooms on the inside were wonderful and we loved their toiletries :) The best bit though.....we were right on the South Rim and so when we came out the lodge this was our view :

On the first evening we had a few drinks in the bar at Bright Angel Lodge and then ate dinner in the restaurant there. The food was good.... But very filling :) We also ate breakfast there the following morning. It was ok... Nothing spectacular.

We had 3 nights at the Grand Canyon and so 2 full days. The first day was spent walking the South Rim.

 The views of The Grand Canyon were spectacular. We walked so far and then took the free shuttle up to the Visitors Center.

Later in the afternoon, we went down to the IMAX Theater which is just outside the Park and watched a fabulous movie all about The Grand Canyon - its history, geology etc We also ate at a lovely Mexican called Sophie's Mexican Kitchen - it was very bright and colourful inside.

On the second day we ate breakfast at El Tovar.... it was delish..... so many yummie choices... these are only a small part of them

Also their dining room is gorgeous.... very Olde Worlde. 

In fact the whole Lodge looks gorgeous. If we ever went to The Grand Canyon again, we would book months and months and months in advance to make sure we got a room there. We tended to eat and have drinks there a lot. 

After breakfast, we took the free shuttle bus in the opposite direction towards Hermit's Rest, stopping at various points and walking. We both agreed that the views were even more stunning than the ones from the previous day

There was a cute building at Hermits Rest which was a shop/cafe with an amazing fireplace

There were always many places to fill up your water bottle enroute

On the way back we popped to have a look at the mules. You can take Mule Rides down the canyon  but with Lala's asthma and how badly it set it off the time we took a mule ride down the steps in Santorini, we decided against that. 

We walked back to the hotel via the railway

We had a wonderful 3 nights at the Grand Canyon and both decided that it is definitely a place to see in your life time. It's totally stunning. 

Will leave you with a quote which was on one of the walls of the IMAX Theater.

"For each man sees himself in the Grand Canyon - each one makes his own Canyon before he comes, each brings and carries away his own Canyon" - Carl Sandburg

If you missed Part One you can read it  here....

Stay tuned for Part Three ....

Our Big Arizona Road Trip - Part One

JOURNEY TO THE GRAND CANYON

We flew Virgin Atlantic (as always) to Las Vegas. It was a good flight.

the plane was called Hot Lips

 A good choice of movies to watch and we enjoyed our food. We tend to order Asian Vegetarian. 

As it is a special order, it isn't mass produced and so always tastes so much better. We flew Premium Economy. It costs a bit more than Economy but sooooo worth it. Lots of leg room, bigger and comfier seats, proper crockery and cutlery....pre flight drinks

Lala loved the salt & pepper pots ;) 

Also fast track through security and priority boarding :)

We landed in Vegas late afternoon... Took the shuttle bus to the Car Rental Park to collect our car and then headed to Mandalay Bay where we were spending the night. We've been to Las Vegas twice before but this was our first time staying at Mandalay Bay. They valet park your car there and took our luggage out the boot for the Bell Boy to drop at our room and so it was all so easy :) All we had to do was check-in and take the elevator up to our room. Our room was perfect.

It was great to be back in Vegas. 

We wandered down The Strip to Caesar's Palace..... I needed to go to Victoria's Secret (my favourite store ever). I was given a free umbrella with my purchases which was worth $68 .. yay.

 I do love their Pink range sooooo much. After we went and ate at one of the Italian restaurants at Caesar's called Spago. The pizzas were Yummie... We were both really really tired ... Lala was even too tired to gamble so we took a cab back and got an early night.

The next day we had almost a 5 hour drive ahead of us to The Grand Canyon.

We set off bright and early to see the Hoover Dam - it's only about a 40 minute drive out of Vegas. We did the plant tour which was interesting. Here are some photos : The Hoover Dam over the Colorado River is considered the world's largest bringing water and power to the South West.

After Hoover Dam we set off to the Grand Canyon ..... We were driving along and heard this noise.... We thought it was something in the boot of the car... But a second later, the tyre sign started flashing on the dashboard. We pulled over and got out to find we had a flat!! ARGHGHGH!! Yep that's how we felt - especially as the pair of us are totally clueless when it comes to changing a tyre !! We couldn't believe it. We got the spare out of the boot and the jack and just stood there saying "OMG... How does this work??!!???"

Our Angels must have been looking after us that day as a lovely kind guy pulled over and helped us. He was a total star!! He changed the tyre for us and also let us use his phone cos it would have cost us a fortune on ours with international roaming. He had lots of free minutes. The spare tyre was one of those which you can only drive 50mph and also only travel a maximum 100miles on it. We had over 200 miles to go to The Grand Canyon so we were trying to sort out a replacement tyre. They told us the nearest place was an hour back from where we came.... Grrrrr.... As we drove back, we realised it was only another extra 10 miles back to the rental place at McCarran Airport ...so went back there and exchanged the car. The funny thing is... I didn't feel too good about that first car .... Should have listened to my intuition... But it got sorted in the end..... But we still had a 5 hour journey to The Grand Canyon.....

Stay tuned....