Arizona Road trip!

The first few days of our barely planned 10 day roadtrip were spent at a great "adults only" community in Gilbert, AZ where Nana and Sharon had been staying for a couple of weeks. They let kids visit for a few days and play at the clubhouse/pool for most of the day. Mom and I drove down to meet the others and the house we stayed at was perfect for us and had plenty of grandkid toys in the garage. The boys loved swimming and napping under the palm trees. We rode around in golf carts and rode our bikes.. It was a very active and friendly community.

How sweet....a flower for Mommy. Next pic, in one of the palm trees by the pool there was a Mommy and 3 baby Great Horned owls. The babies were only a couple of weeks old and were barely testing their wings. We enjoyed checking on them every morning and afternoon and it gave Colter his animal fix.

After Mom, Sharon, Janet and Nana went home we headed north to Scottsdale to stay with our friends the Colwell's. On our way we stopped at the Desert Botanical Garden and played for a few hours. The highlight was definately the Butterfly Pavilion.

We were all in awe of the Saguaro cactus (cacti?) that are only found in the Senoran Desert. They are giant! Colter loved all the types and his favorite was the Golden Barrel Cactus. This happy boy with a butterfly on his foot sat still for over 20 minutes enjoying his new friend. The butterfly crawled up to his knee and back to his foot, Colter was thrilled!

Cute pic of the boys with their friend Ryan Colwell. We went to the Train Park one day and rode the choo choo and the merry go round. Dylan was less than thrilled with the merry go round---pretty funny for me, not for him.

The next day was Go Carts! The boys loved this one. Colter was a expert racer and Dylan was very serious about having his own red car. He did a very good job of controlling his car and the guys in charge let him go the entire time.

Everyday we had funtime in the Colwell's pool. Charlie, who is about the size of a Blakney man, tossed the boys all over the place. They loved it! The pool is surrounded by rocks and is very well designed for boys that like to jump off things. We loved staying at their house and had lots of fun exploring, sidewalk chalking, gecko and other animal hunting, bike riding and swimming. Oh yeah, and watching movies in their super cool movie theater!

Did I mention they had fun jumping off the rocks? Love this picture.

Next up was Out of Africa, a wildlife preserve with over 100 types of exotic animals. This is an interactive learning facility with opportunities to feed and pet some of the animals. Colter fed his carrot to the giraffe, Ryan decided to hold on to his and Dylan ate his carrot--each with his own approach.

Oops, pics out of order. This was our next day, on our slow journey home, at Meteor Crater. Five is such a fun age for exploring--Colter loves outer space right now and was completely enthralled with this place. It is the impact site of a 150 ft. wide meteor in the 1800's. The pit is huge, over 1/2 mile across. We went to every possible view point, all museum displays, short movies and the rock shop. We came home with lots of new additions to the rock collection.

Ok, back to Out of Africa pics. Yup, that is a 17 ft., 100+ pound boa constrictor and yup, those are my boys holding it! I graciously volunteered to take pictures instead of helping carry the snake. Colter and Dylan thought this was the best part of the day. Well, they also liked the tiger swimming/playing show and feeding the giraffes and petting the camel, oh and the zebras, ostrich, lions, rhino, puma......it was a fun day.

On the same day as Meteor Crater, we also visited Petrified Wood National Forest. Luckily, I had been warned that this was not actually a forest and had seen pictures on the internet--we were not expecting an actual forest when we got there. It was beautiful in it's own way and we loved taking a break from driving and running on the short trails. The petrified wood had tons of color and character. The boys liked the dinosaurs in the little museum and had fun picking out more rocks, crystals, arrowheads and petrified wood at the rock shop.

This was my first road trip with the boys to a place we had never been. We enjoyed the Phoenix area and all of the activities it presented. My new navigation system (birthday present) was a life saver and I doubt I will ever travel without it again. It made driving to new places, which is the most stressful part of a roadtrip for me, completely effortless. The boys were very well behaved, with only the expected amount of rowdiness to spice up the journey. I love getting warm in the springtime and I am so glad this trip worked out as well as it did. We were in shorts and without shoes most of the time--my kind of vacation. Now we are back in the rain and mud that is spring in Telluride and planning our next adventure to the desert, this time with Daddy!