4 Wheels 4 Girls

On March 31st, we visited the Grand Canyon. I had seen pictures of it and people told me it was really awesome, but I never expected it to be SO awesome and huge. When we pulled into the visitor center parking lot, I couldn’t see the canyon at all. We had to take a little walk to get to the rim of the canyon after visiting the park bookstore and museum/visitor center. As soon as I saw it, I thought, “WOW. That is BEAST.” I went crazy with my camera and took tons of pictures. Here is one that I really like: 🙂

The Grand Canyon is actually WAAAY bigger than this. Can you believe it?!

We stood on the lookout for awhile, then started to walk back toward our camper. All the sudden I saw some people looking at something in the woods, so my sisters and I all ran up to where the people were standing. There was a big BDLTWH, as Stella would call it, a.k.a. Big Deer-Like Thing With Horns. We soon realized that it was an elk, and we all took tons of pictures of it! Here is a great one that I took:

There's the elk running through the woods! 🙂

When we got back to our campground, we went for pizza and talked about how our first day at the Grand Canyon was really cool. I agree! 😀

Another weird name! This little national monument is pronounced too-see-whoot, and it is in Arizona. It is a thousand year old Pueblo ruin, houses made of rock, that the Yavapai tribe lived in. There are a bunch of ruins to explore and hike through there. We started up the path and we saw two lizards. I would’ve gotten a great picture- if my camera wasn’t still on the black-and-white setting. The ruins were really cool, and I took lot of cool pictures. (after I fixed my camera! 🙂 ) Here are Ellie and Ana in front of an ancient stone wall:

Ellie and Ana standing in front of the ruins

You can see some of the pueblo ruins down the hill behind them. One family lived in each room. The doors were in the rooftops.

Here is a picture of me looking out over the Verde River Valley from the top of the ruins:

Looking out over the valley

I took this close-up picture of the patterns made by bugs under the bark of one of the wooden beams supporting the main building of the pueblo:

Insects turned this beam into a work of art

The ruins were really cool, and after seeing them it made me glad that I live in a modern house. The pueblo was nice, but there were a lot of things that are much improved today.

The hike would have been a lot nicer if it wasn’t so HOT. When we got back to the visitor center, two nice park rangers, Lisa and John, taught us a lot about the park. We went there on March 31. I really liked Tuzigoot National Monument! 🙂

Hey aren’t you glad I can pronounce that let alone spell it? Haha. On March 25th, we went to this awesome national monument. When we got there we had to get on a whole bunch of hiking gear ’cause we planned to cover a lot of ground in the park. In the visitor center there was a very nice park ranger named Suzanne who taught us a lot about the park AND she got us a ride up to the top of the ridge. When we got there we started to hike down the ridge and look at the spectacular rock formations. We hiked along an easy trail for a while and really enjoyed the beautiful view of the balanced rocks. All the huge rocks looked like statues of Native Americans standing in a big cluster. After about a mile or so we got hungry and stopped for lunch after exploring some really cool rock grottos. We sat on these nice smooth rocks in the shade and enjoyed the view. Here is a picture of Stella and I eating lunch:

Eating lunch on the rocks

After lunch we had food in our bellies, but we still had quite a ways to go; at least a few miles. The hike was nice but soon my sisters started to get tired and the signs were showing. We started to go up a longer steeper hill but we didn’t have a flashlight (it was going to get late) so we decided against it. When we were about halfway back down to the visitor center we stopped for Girl Scout cookies. (yum! 🙂 ) After five miles of hiking we finally made it back, and Ellie and Ana saved the last of their energy to run the last 100 yards. I thought they were insane. We ate another cookie at the bottom.

I forget exactly where we took this, so I’ll just put it in here. Here we are in front of a big balanced rock:

Geez don't you think that rock has to work hard to stay in that position!?

I really liked Chiricahua National Monument! 🙂

We camped in Willcox, Arizona, and in the morning we drove to Chiricahua National Monument. On the way I saw this little drive-in restaurant called Carter’s Drive-In. I decided to take a picture of it for my friend:

You like this, Carter?!

This is for you, Carter. Miss ya! 🙂

White Sands was REALLY cool. We rode into the dunes in our camper and the road was super bumpy. When we got there we tried to find a nice sledding place on the dunes, and when we found one, Ana was very eager to try sledding down the dunes after me. Here is a picture we took of her starting off:

Sledding on the Dunes

After sledding for awhile, we got tired of having sand-filled shoes and we decided to take a barefoot hike. It felt amazing to have the wind blowing on my face and to feel the cold sand on my feet. At one point my parents tried to take a picture of just them, but I snuck in behind them. Can you see me? Look close in the picture below:

See me back there? Hahaha!

After sledding, we went back to the visitor center and met a really nice ranger named Kathy. We was really nice and she seemed to know a lot about the park. She taught us so much and she was kind.

The White Sands national monument was really fun and neat. I enjoyed it almost as much as Carlsbad Caverns! 🙂

On Wednesday, March 23rd, we went to Carlsbad Caverns national park. It was the most amazing natural wonder I had ever seen. Mammoth Cave and Ruby Falls were both super cool, but this one really blew them both out of the water. When we walked down into the cave, I just couldn’t stop taking pictures even though the light was bad. There was just so much to see, and I would like to share some of it with you. Here is a great picture I took of a cool jellyfish-looking rock formation:

A naturally made sculpture

After we walked around the big room and finished our walk, my sisters were exhausted, but I wouldn’t have minded walking all the way back up just to see everything again. It is definitely my favorite national park so far. I know I’ve said this before, but if you’re ever in the area, check it out!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

A tank in New Mexico

I took a picture of this tank just for you, Granddad. Hope you like it! 🙂

After the memorials in Oklahoma City, we drove all day out of Oklahoma and we finally made it to Texas around dinnertime. We ate at a Texas steakhouse and, while the rest of my family had barbequed beef, I had a chicken sandwich. It was SO good. We kept driving all night until I woke up the next morning And there was huge mesa out my window! We had made it to New Mexico! I took a picture of it:

A mesa on a New Mexico morning

My parents had totally missed the mesas as they were driving by, so it was a nice surprise to see them there. The drive was beautiful after that and I took countless videos of the road trying to see a tumbleweed for my friend Zoe. I did actually see a few but I’m not sure if i caught any on camera. I’ll try again.

It was fun!

On March 18th, we went to the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis. It was so cool and it really made me think about how people worked so hard to build this massive monument. It amazed me.

We had to wake up super early to get in line. Once we got there we got in line on the north tram side. After a few minutes they announced people could get in line on the south side, so our family and a few other families started to run toward the south end. Stella, Ellie, and me started to race these three other boys and Ellie outran them. (We were proud of her!) Luckily, we beat the rush and got in line pretty quickly.

Being at the top of the arch was SO beast. I don’t have any other words to describe it. That pretty much sums it up.

Back down in the visitor center, we saw an awesome video on how the arch was made. Then, in the museum, Dad gave us an incredibly brief tour of Louis & Clark’s expedition. Then we left and took this really cool picture of the Gateway Arch:

An interesting view of the arch

It was a really cool experience!!! 🙂

On St. Patrick’s Day I went to the City Museum in St. Louis, MO. It was seriously amazing. Everything was made of recycled parts–cranes, planes, castles, an old log cabin, and so many other crazy things. There were so many places to explore and discover and, in a full day, a person couldn’t explore half of it. The museum was ten stories tall and there was everything you could imagine, including a real school bus hanging off the roof!

Outside, in a big jungle gym of tunnels, paths, and walkways, I went in the scariest passage. It was a round metal mesh tunnel that slanted diagonally upward over an old airplane that was way high in the sky (maybe 80 feet above the ground). As I climbed, I could see the ground, and the people all looked ants. It was fun and terrifying. You could see everything from above because the rods of the tunnel were far enough apart to see everything through them, including my family taking a picture of me. Here is the picture:

The girl at the top of the curve is me!

Luckily I am not afraid of heights!

I did a lot of exploring on my own. I went inside a huge whale, climbed through the trunk of a tree, ran on a hamster wheel, and so much more. After awhile I noticed that most places I went, there were these two boys there too. The three of us explored for a little bit, and in a big dark maze I ran into the one named Luke. I had a big (luckily not very noticeable) bruise on my head. Also, I destroyed my knee on the hamster wheel. I looked very graceful by the end of the day.

I had lots of fun at the museum and it was unlike anything I have ever experienced. I got some really cool handmade shoelaces from a shop in the museum to remember the day. If you are ever in St. Louis, check it out! 🙂