Are We There Yet?

Wow!  That word has been in frequent use the past few days as we have made our way across this beautiful, diverse country.  Since wi-fi has been scarce, I have not been able to update this blog like I would have liked, but here we sit on day 9 of our adventure - all the way over in the Grand Canyon!  We travelled through New Orleans, crossed the Mighty Mississippi to stay the night in Baton Rouge, LA on our second day.  Day three took us through the soggy south into Texas, where we spent the majority of our travel days - wow, what a huge state Texas is!  We were able to spend an entire day touring the beautiful city of San Antonio, a high-light for sure.  We passed through El Paso and stopped for some amazing mexican food, then on to Tucson for the night.  It was interesting to be in the very city where such a tragedy had taken place the day before.  We prayed for the lives of those injured and for the families of those whose lives were lost.  But it was a quiet night and we were up the next day to travel on to Sedona, AZ.  We were taken by surprise at the beauty there and after a good nights rest, had a blast hiking to rugged, red terrain of the amazing rock formations in Sedona and surrounding areas.  We left in the afternoon to make our way to one of the seven natural wonders of the world - the Grand Canyon.  Worth mentioning, though, is the incredible scenery between Sedona and the Grand Canyon - very unexpectedly reminiscent of Colorado's Rocky Mountains.  Anyway, we made it to the Grand Canyon just in time for the sunset - again, we all exclaimed, WOW!  Maddi and Harrison kept saying "is it real?".  It was so unbelievably majestic, it almost felt like we were standing in front of a life-sized screen watching a movie.  Except for the freezing temperatures, that is!  We awoke this morning to a temperature of 9 degrees and by lunch time it has warmed up to a warm 15 degrees!  Yes, we are SO cold - that is why I am sitting here writing this instead of taking-in the breathtaking beauty right now!  If it were a bit warmer, we would surely be hiking as far down as time would allow!  That was the plan...but we are thankful for just being here!  So, I'm gonna get off here now and venture back into the cold!