Ridin' the Rails

We stayed at a hotel in Flagstaff after seeing the Grand Canyon. The next day we headed back through Oak Creek Canyon to our next destination. The first time through we had saw a sign for Slide Rock National Park. I had read online about this being a good family destination so I wanted to check it out.

Slide Rock is a really neat place. There are natural waterslides made by the water flowing over shallow, slippery rock planes. None of us had our bathing suits, which was a good thing because the water was COLD! Ava and I did put our feet in the water though. At first she wasn't sure she wanted to and would hold her feet up as I lowered her toward the water. After the first toe dip she was hooked. It was all we could do to keep her from slipping on the algae-covered rocks or jumping into water that went over her head. The water was so cold it made the bones of my feet hurt, but she acted like it was 80 degree water.We didn't stay too long because Ava was so headstrong about swimming and we were getting worn out holding her back.

We continued on our way through Sedona to the town of Clarkdale, where we were going to pick up a train to ride through Verde Canyon (they sure do have a lot of canyons in Arizona). The start of the train ride wasn't too picturesque as we went by an old copper mine. The mine would pour molten slag out onto the ground when they were done extracting the copper from the ore. The result of many years of this was 40 acres of slag 40 feet deep. THAT'S A LOT OF SLAG! The railroad workers informed us that the plan was to process the slag to extract more of the minerals out of it with more modern methods.


The views got a lot better after getting past the copper mine. We passed by several ancient Native American caves whose roofs were stained with soot from fires. After 20 minutes or so we entered the canyon and the views were amazing. The red rocks stood out against the blue skies and green brush. How convenient that the human eyes detects combinations of these three colors. The ride was a four-hour round trip with a stop in the town (more literally, house) of Perkinsville to turn around. Close to Perkinsville there was a tunnel that we went through that curved its way through the mountain. Because of the curve you couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel until you were nearly there. Parts of the tunnel had only 6 inches of clearance between the train cars and the walls. "Keep all body parts you want to go home with in the train cars." Check.


We drove to the house of our friends, Denny & Sara, after we got back to Clarkdale. The following day Doni, Ava, and I went to the Wildlife World Zoo in Phoenix. On the way there we drove directly past Luke Air Force Base. Fighter jets were mere yards above us as they approached the runway. I would have pulled over to watch them land, but there were signs warning us in a not so subtle way that that might not be such a good idea. The zoo ended up being a nice, smaller zoo. They still had a lot of the animals people go to the zoo to see (rhino, lion, tigers, giraffes, and ducks) and we were able to get fairly close to them.

The next day we went to a factory tour of Cerreta Candy Company. It wasn't as good as the tour that we had gone on in Columbus last year, but we did get some free samples out of it. Their retail store had all kinds of candy, like you would expect, but they also had barbecue sauce (huh?) and popcorn. Their popcorn was pre-popped and in massive three-pound bags that looked like overstuffed 2 ft x 3 ft pillows. I wondered if the airline would let me take my "pillow" on the plane.


Next, we drove to Fountain Park in Fountain Hills to see the.... fountain. The fountain was once listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest fountain in the world. It can shoot water 562 feet in the air. If you look at this picture close up, you can see how small it makes the large houses in the back ground look. We bought Subway sandwiches and had a picnic on the shore of the fountain's lake. Ava had a great time feeding the bread remaining from her sandwich to the ducks. She would get a little more distance to her throws if she didn't throw the bread like a frisbee, but she's still learning.



Denny & Sara had the great idea that we should swap baby-sitting nights, so Doni and I were able to go to dinner and a movie. We had a good time staying with Denny, Sara, and their two daughters Trinity and Sadie. They moved out to Phoenix over a year ago, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

In our last few days in Arizona we drove back to Tucson to see Seth lead worship during one of his last services at that church. Soon we were back on our way home. It was a great vacation and was even better to see old friends, but it is always good to come home.