Boyinks4Adventure

When we first started dreaming of this trip over a year ago we posted a US map on our kitchen wall and started marking it up with places each of us would like to visit.  The Petrified Forest National Park was one of Storybird’s requests - she had read about the Petrified Forest in Ripley’s Believe or Not so wanted to see it. It became our last stop in Arizona…   Read More >>

Some things you just gotta do. With our sights set on some national monuments east of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the route took us through Winslow.  So after checking in to the local state park, we drove back into town and found the proper place to go stand on the corner. Now I figured I didn’t have to say much more than that - this is Winslow, Arizona and…   Read More >>

Awesome. Epic. Humbling. Deceptive. Dangerous. Surreal. Controversial. We spent a couple of days at the Grand Canyon and in that time saw just a minuscule percentage of it.  But our experience was that each of these words rung true.  Our first view of the canyon was at the Easter Sunrise Service (after getting up at 3:00 AM to get there in time).  The experience of having that awesome sight revealed…   Read More >>

The conversation happened at church on a Sunday morning during the mad-dash for coffee and cookies between the worship and the message.  Well, they call it “Fellowship” but we all know it’s about the coffee and cookies.  I don’t recall exactly how the conversation started so I’ll jump in mid-stream: “Well, we won’t be around then because we’re leaving on a year-long family road trip.  We’re leaving in September.” The…   Read More >>

On the recommendation of several people we drove to the nearby town of Jerome, AZ.  Jerome is a former mining town located up higher on a nearby mountain at just over 5000 feet.  While the marketing websites we read rather breathlessly described the town as a “photographers paradise” and “Americas largest ghost town” I didn’t find much to point the camera at.  You could see the historic buildings, but they…   Read More >>

Cottonwood was our first stop after leaving the Phoenix area, where we had been for around a month.  It’s an interesting drive north, breaking out of the desert floor and starting to hit some foothills & mountains again. Cottonwood sits at 3450 ft, but to get there you drive over some higher passes and then come down into the Cottonwood area.  We had driven in traffic all day in Scottsdale…   Read More >>

Since our two weeks in Scottsdale/Phoenix area were so busy, we decided to return to Usery Mountain Recreational Park for a few days to relax and enjoy nature. The enjoying came easily; the relaxing not so much. It turned into a busy week. Mike drove back to Scottsdale for a client meeting on Monday. He also had quite a bit of client work due to basically being out-of-the-office for the…   Read More >>

We extended our second stay at Usery Mountain Recreational Park when we found out there was a Roller Derby scheduled nearby on Saturday evening. Attending a roller derby was on our odd-ball list of things-to-do while on this road trip. When we arrived at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, we discovered we’d be seeing two games of the Arizona Derby Dames 2011 Season 6. The first bout pitted the Hot…   Read More >>

Our last week in the desert brought us the privilege of seeing many of the different cacti starting to sprout their spring flowers.  After 6 weeks (and running) of being in Arizona it was really nice to see colors besides brown and green! We were especially happy to be able to see a Saguaro flower because they are the Arizona state flower, they bloom at night, close up during the…   Read More >>

Here’s an event I never would have guessed we’d witness - rattlesnakes mating.  We noticed some fuss & bother happening at the campsite across the road from us.  People were stopping, discussions were going on, and the occupants of the campsite were holding a gals dog for her while she went along side their truck.  The campers left the next day and another camper walked into the site to take…   Read More >>