Phoenix Hot Air Balloon Ride, Jan 7 20013

The countryside is very interesting around Phoenix, on the way in we saw what seemed like forests of Cactus growing in the desert. We are staying at the Radisson Ft McDowell Resort and Casino.

Tomorrow at dawn we are going up in a hot air balloon!

We were picked up at the hotel at 6 am and driven out to a couple of locations on the edge of the city (in the desert) before we found a good launch location that worked with the winds. We had quite a crowd of us from our YMY tour. They put up 10 balloons. Each balloon had between 4 and 12 people in them.

We had a big basket and we squeezed 10 of us in there. - 5 on each side and each person could look over the side with their backs to the centre of the basket. It was cozy, but a lot of fun and you could see really well. It was very different than we thought it would be. There was no wind, it was quite warm with the fire going, and it was very quiet. ....and not scary at all. ....and way higher than Leviathon, Brad :-).

SEDONA & Montezuma's Castle - Jan 5, 13

When we got to Sedona, we took the jeep tour for an off- road drive up into red rock country. What a fun way to get to know the history and geology of this beautiful country. We spent the night at the Poco Diablo Resort - very nice.

On the way to Phoenix we stopped at Montezumas Castle

MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE

Montezuma's Castle is not a castle, nor does it have anything to do with Montezuma. It is the cliff dwellings of the Sinagua farmers. It is a 5 story, 20 room dwelling built in cliff recesses 100 above the valley floor. It was built in about 1100 AD. They were well protected there from all dangers, but the people mysteriously disappeared from the area.

Grand Canyon Jan 4th-5th

We arrived at the Grand Canyon in time to see the sunset. Then up early this morning to catch the sunrise. Fantastic views- the pictures certainly do not capture how majestic and enormous this canyon is. We stayed at Meswik Lodge - right in Grand Canyon National Park. Temperatures reached a low of minus 18C, but up to 0 when the sun came up. It was pretty cold standing on the rim. It was also very snowy and icy and most of the trails and viewpoint had no fences on the rim.... Pretty scary!
We saw lots of mule deer roaming all over the resort.