Chapel of the Holy Cross
This trip actually started as a school field trip. My class spent 4-5 days traveling all around Arizona hitting up Phoenix, Scottsdale, Sedona, Grand Canyon and other stops in between. Our sight seeing started at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West. While not a national park site, it was still pretty interesting. The best part was probably sitting inside Frank's living room in his specially-designed chair - thank God for air conditioning in Arizona!
After hitting up that joint, we stopped by Cosanti and Arcosanti - aka a slightly freaky urban experiment by Paulo Soleri. I'm not sure why my profs wanted us to go there, but I think we all felt a little brain washed after it was all said and done! "Enough of this rubbish!", I said.
Mt Doom? Where's Frodo?
..ok not really, but I felt the need to see something worthwhile! Finally, our group of friends decided to go see something on our own, which ended up being the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona. Now, this was a cool place to see...built high on a hill and into the rock, the chapel overlooks the city and offers some other-worldly views. The atmosphere inside was truly special and I felt refreshed after sitting inside for awhile. If you're ever in the area, check it out!
Now, we get to the good stuff...stamps! Now, I had no idea that there was a passport for national parks until we stopped by a site called Sunset Crater National Monument. I bought my passport, got my first stamp and off we went. We got to walk around the site on this trail that led us through some really weird and petrified areas that looked like something from Mordor in LOTR.
Me and Adam at the Grand Canyon
The hike was cool and we got some good views of the crater. Finally, we were on our way to the Grand Canyon - big daddy of all national parks...or something like that. I had never been before, so I was beyond excited. I got my second stamp of the day [!] at the visitor's center and then we were off to see the canyon. The views were absolutely amazing as many of you have probably seen. The sunset was ok, probably because it was freezing and I wasn't dressed warm enough. The whole experience was fun though and I was the only one out of my group cool enough to brave the mule poop infested trail for a ways [where I lost my camera case RIP] ...all in all, a fun trip that started a new hobby!
