honeymoon road trip: day 8-11

i am sad to report that day 7 was our last day "alone" on our honeymoon.

but that's cool, because we love our friends!  and any day spent with friends is a great day in our book.

anyway.....so, yeah, we went on a road trip honeymoon down to Scotsdale, Arizona for a wedding.  an AWESOME wedding!  we had a ton of fun the entire weekend!

schedule breakdown went a bit like this:

day 8: rehearsal and rehearsal dinner and then drinking well into the night with the bride's father.  who was awesome.  we loved dan.

 this is actually where the reception was, but there was another wedding there that night.

 awww...friends forever.

day 9: Kyle and the boys left for the wedding around noon and the wives/girlfriends/fiances fended for themselves for the afternoon.  moi?  i chose to get my nails redone.  i had the same Shellac manicure on from the day of my wedding and it was looking a little haggard.  called around and found a salon right down the street from our hotel and was properly manicured by an awesome guy whose name escapes me, but he was awesome.  i'll try to remember it in case any of you are in Scottsdale sometime and need a manicure.  i mean, who doesn't?!?  we took a car to the wedding (FANCY!!) and proceeded to witness a beautiful ceremony in a gorgeous venue.  and then we got stupid drunk.

some evidence:

 oh crap, am i supposed to be praying?  i just noticed this was during prayer.  sorry, guys!

 don't ask what that hand gesture means...

 how many boys can fit in the phone booth?!

 we're trapped!

 uh.  no....no...that's not the groom at all.  silly.

 going to that bar was a poor decision.

there were a lot more embarrassing pictures i could have put up there, but i choose to leave them out.  i'd like my marriage to last longer than 6 months, thankyouverymuch.

did you hear that Kyle!?!  i chose YOU over the BLOG!  remember that later.  mmmk?

day 10: hungover but alive, we all went out for breakfast.  yummo.  then the Shaffer's packed up for the long haul home....a LOOOOOONG haul.  on day 10, we drove from Scottsdale, AZ to Tucumcari, NM.

that's a long drive.  10 hours to be exact.  but, we made it.  we stayed in a LOVELY trucker hotel right off the highway.  but it was 1 in the morning and i didn't care where i slept as long as i slept.

day 11: Tucumcari, NM to Wichita, KS.  another long haul.  alas, we made it!

and thus ends the Great American Road Trip Honeymoon.

whew, it's been a long ride ladies and gents.  hope you enjoyed a few of the thousands of pictures i took and my random ramblings.

deuces!

catie

honeymoon roadtrip: day 7

after a exhausting day at the grand canyon, we rested quite a bit on day 7.  i think we slept until like ten or something.

i know, sorry, we are boring like that sometimes.

we actually got to sleep in a little.  (HALLELUJAH!)  side note: i just spelled hallelujah right on the first try. i'm awesome.

the night of day 6, we looked around on the interwebs for stuff to do in little ol' flagstaff.  and i stumbled upon the Riordan Mansion.  the Riordan Mansion is a Arts and Crafts style duplex (don't let that scare you, this house is over 13,000 square feet, each brother had over 6,000 square feet at their disposal) home, built by two brothers who essentially started the logging business in Flagstaff.

and being the architectural nerd that i am, i told kyle that is where we would be going the next day.

naturally, he was thrilled.  :)

here are some shots of the interior of the home.  sorry in advance, you have to know that interior designers see the world much differently...and therefore the majority of my favorite pictures are just small details in the woodworking and such....

 this was a vertical flat file (for storing large architectural drawings) and pulled out from the wall.  the wood carvings were amazing and the thing was MASSIVE.  about 6' wide.  i NEEEED one of these!

proof we were actually there.

 the light fixtures were exquisite.  this was one of my favorites.

more drool-worthy built ins.  they were all over the house.

fantastical wood beam ceilings.

and THAT is the story of how i convinced kyle we will one day build an Arts and Craft style home.  in the country.  on many acres.  with a barn.

amen.

oh, and after the house tour, we went thrifting and antiquing around town.  we didn't buy much.  the prices were A LOT higher than the Santa Fe shops.  but, it was still a blast.

after a little shopping, we drove to Prescott Valley by way of Sedona.

let's pause and reflect on how gorgeous Sedona is....

proof we were actually in sedona.  i wore a lovely knit scarf i bought from a little Nepalese man in Santa Fe.  i wear it a lot.  just ask my coworkers.  :)

okay, i'm done.  because Sedona is redic expensive.  we walked around the main drag just long enough to walk up one side and down the other.  we squeezed another penny (did i mention that?  we started a squashed penny book.  maybe if you're lucky i'll show it to you sometime....maybe) and after quickly getting shot down on the Pink Jeep Tours, we made our merry little way to a much cheaper and only slightly less pretty town called Prescott Valley.

along the way, we ran into a town called Jasper.  Jasper is literally on the side of a mountain.  not.  kidding.

my mom would hate it there.  she has an intense hatred of heights.  you should have seen her when we went to Pike Peak....LOVE YOU, MOM!

but i loved it.  it was a quirky little village and seemed to be a bit of an artist's community.  don't quote me on that.  we didn't actually stop.

we were worried the car wouldn't make it up the mountain if we stopped.

i kid, i kid.

what was i talking about?  oh, yeah, Jasper.  here's some pictures:

and then we saw a gorgeous sunset:

and then we ate more Mexican food.  are you surprised?

probably not.

also of note: our hotel in Prescott Valley was by far the best hotel we stayed in.  it had a wonderfully comfortable bed and i feel asleep instantly.  sigh....i miss that bed.

honeymoon road trip: day 6

day 6 of our road trip was (if i'm totally honest) my most favorite and my least favorite day of the trip.

we woke up early in anticipation of running a few errands and heading up to the grand canyon for hiking.  i had big dreams of hiking down to the bottom and back up in one day.  which, we probably could have done.  it would have been a long trip, but we had been working out prior to the wedding, doing a program here in wichita called "shocker fitness" a group of runners led by the wichita state university track coach.  so we knew we were in good shape.

nature, on the other hand, had other plans in store for us.

on october 6th, 2010 flagstaff, arizona was hit by a series of tornadoes and hail storms at 5:30 in the morning.  FIVE THIRTY IN THE MORNING, PEOPLE!!  what the crap?  arizona, you must be confused, when it storms in kansas, it's always at a decent time when people are awake and doing normal things.  like eating dinner.  duh.  get your stuff together, arizona.

but i digress.

true story: arizona usually gets about four tornadoes a year.  and they got 8 in a day.  and flagstaff isn't really up-to-speed when it comes to tornadoes.  and nothing there is built withstand that sort of wind and weather activity.  at least in this commercial-interior-designer-architectural-nerd-who-happens-to-be-from-kansas girl's humble opinion.  i mean, crap, the week before our wedding, kansas had record breaking hail.  an 8" hail stone fell in wichita that week.  it punched holes in people's roofs.

by the way, i am not making fun of arizona...i'm merely stating that i they aren't prepared for these sorts of things.  for good reason...they don't usually have them.

for example:

source

this amount of damage was done by an EF-2 (some say EF-3) tornado.

so, needless to say, kyle and i were pretty much the only people out and about in flagstaff that morning.  we were all, "ppshhh, just a little bit of rain!" 

we went to the grocery store across the street from the hotel to pick up some lunch.  completely empty.  the manager of the store checked us out.

we went to walmart to pick up some hiking boots for me.  i had brought hiking shoes, but with that much rain we had the forethought to think that JUST MAYBE it might be a little muddy at the canyon.  thank god for that forethought.  i also picked up a waterproof jacket while i was there.  again, thank god for that.

walmart was almost completely empty.

so then i'm all, "hell yes, the canyon is going to be way empty!"

yeah, right.

we drove through lots and lots of tree damaged national forest barely seeing anyone along the way...and pull into the south rim parking lot to see it completely full of people.  and hail that looked like snow.

a very blurry picture of downed trees...sorry.

yup, that's hail.

and the canyon was clouded over.

i'm not exaggerating, you couldn't even see the canyon.

okay, you could kind of see it.....and i admit, it was gorgeous.

we walked around the (brand new) visitor's center and along a few of the rim trails while it rained/sleeted on us and finally just decided to go for it.

we walked about a quarter of a mile down the south kaibab trail and TADA!

we were beneath the clouds!  and you could see for miles and miles!

here's a map from the NPS website i reference above of the trail we hiked:

we went about 2.5 miles down into the canyon and since we had a late start, decided we wouldn't be able to make it down to the river and back before night fall, so we turned around and headed back up.  on the way down we stopped at Ooh Aah Point, to um, oooh and aaah i suppose.  we got a few great shots of both of us there...

oooh

aaahhh...

ooohhh!

and then we stopped again at Cedar Ridge for the ever important potty break and lunch.

 it was raining.  again.

this little guy decided to join us.

 

 

during our lunch (which was rudely interrupted by two of the most annoying children i've ever been around and their equally annoying parents) a park ranger blew past us on her way to camp down in the canyon.  she said she was going to stay down there for a couple of days and then hike back up to the north rim from there.  (the south kaibab trail has a north kaibab trail that goes to the north rim's visitor's center.)  i was in awe.  even though i hate camping, i think i might camp down in the grand canyon, just because that seems pretty bad ass to me.  don't you think?

and now, for the picture heavy portion part of the post...

this was our turn around point.

we were about a half a mile in when we stopped to take this one.  it shows the trail going down the side of the cliff.  it's a switchback trail...can you see the people?!?

definitely one of the best days of the entire trip.

have you ever hiked the grand canyon?  did you love it as much as i did?  how weird do you think we are that we enjoy hiking?  because people ask me if i'm crazy a lot, but i LOVE to hike!