"Granite Dells" or "Yay, Let's Go Swimming"

ME:  Look at this cool picture of this lake in the guidebook!  This place looks amazing ~ let's go!

JIM:  Where do I turn? Holy, crap this road from Jerome over the hill is insane.  We are NOT taking the trailer this way.  No way.  Where do I turn?

DOG: In the car! I love the car!  IN THE CAR! OH BOY! 
MY FAVORITE THING!
Oh tired. Nap... favorite th...
WATER! I WANT TO GET IN IT!
Swimming!  SWIMMING!!  
MY FAVORITE THING!!

ME:  This place is beautiful!  And so uncrowded.

JIM:  Check out the sign ~ we are missing The Highland Games by one day!

DOG:  WATER! 
Look at all that WATER! 
WATER! 
MY FAVORITE THING!

DOG:  COOKIES! 
I WANT COOKIES! 
Or maybe go back in the water. 
Or cookies. 
Mmmm or maybe nap?

ME:  Wow, wouldn't this be an amazing place to go kayaking?

JIM:  Cool rocks.  A beer's starting to sound good about now...

Sedona Drive

Sedona is a "don't miss", right?

Well we missed the tourist Sedona.

Missed the galleries and gift shops.

Missed the expensive restaurants and boutiques.

We went for the rocks!

Amazing rocks!
Red buttes.

Pink cliffs.

Green in between.

Absolutely stunning!

We didn't even bother to buy the Red Rock Parking Pass or whatever it was called.
Some piece of paper required to put on our windshield if we parked ANY where.
We hovered instead.

The hovering in lieu of hiking worked out well for us.
Remember, it was desert.
It was hot.
And our dog was wearing a black fur coat.

And Out of The Woods...

And into the frying pan desert.

Out of Flag early with hugs, pets and licks to Al, Debbie and Lucy Dog.
And down the amazing Oak Creek Canyon.
It would have been a little more amazing if we weren't towing a trailer...
Yikes - some serious hairpin turns!
And yay for the map / GPS system on my phone :)

Through the equally amazing Sedona and down the highway to Dead Horse State Park.
Where we set up home for a few days.
Got the lawn chairs out.
The tables.
The rugs.
The dog.
The wine and beer and cheese and crackers and nuts and books and music.
Heaven in a Scamp.

This was a great place to be a base for day trips!

The first one being the mile high city up the crazy hairpin turn road Jerome!
Tourist shops and wine tasting.
Which we did about two of the first and none of the second.
Iced coffee was a better choice on a hot day when we had to drive back down the crazy hairpin turn road...

Having the ball and chain dog along dictated what we could do.
So we could not go see the former hospital turned hotel with a bed pan for a candy dish at the front counter...

But we could walk around a bit, check out a few shops and admire the view of The Verde Valley below.

And go back down the hill for amazing burgers at Bing's Burgers in Cottonwood.
Because Bing's has a dog friendly patio.

Then back to the Scamperific for wine and reading "Death in Grand Canyon" until the sun went over the horizon.

And left us smiling and content in a warm, calm desert eve...

Flagstaff and Maya Dog!

In to "Old Town" Flagstaff for an afternoon of filling up our water tanks, buying ice, poking into shops and tormenting our dog with 8 other dogs tied up in front of the brew pub having a beer!

Flagstaff has some cool old buildings and signs.

And odd ones...

Al had to be dog holder a couple of times.

Which he was quite good at.

Back to camp full of water, ice and beer.

And had our friend Katie and Lexie's friend Maya come!

This is Maya, not Katie.

Maya and Lexie are dock friends, because Maya's daddy has a boat in our dry storage.
They didn't even sniff each other before they started playing!

Or before Maya started chewing on Lexie.
Playing.
Chewing.
Whatever.

While the humans had happy hour...

Wine and cheese sounded a little better than chewing on a dog's neck...

Post Grand Canyon

Found some interesting things along the road back to our campground near Flagstaff...

This was cool ~

This was... uh... something ~

Vacation Grand Canyon

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Hell of a lot easier than typing too!

 How do humans really know that dogs don't see color they way they do?
I KNOW!
Less of a reaction when dogs see The Grand Canyon.

Amazing!

I loved it!

Could have stood there for hours...
Behind a rail of course.

The clouds made for interesting shadows.

And now, what everyone's been waiting for...

THE DOG'S VERSION!

Aaaaagggghhhhh Mama that's really deep!

Hold me!  Hold me!  HOLD ME!

Ahhhh that's better.

Don't ever do that to me again.

And wow do they grow cats big here!

Vacation Part Whatever

I am being fired from my position as head blog writer.
By a so called friend.
She preferred to read the dog's version.
You know, the blithering version about cookies, naps, chasing cats and sniffing butts things.
Now if I could just wake the dog up from nap #12 of the day to fill in...

Dog Version goes something like this:
WALK!
PEE!
POOP!
BREAKFAST!
PETS!
Ohhhh.
Ssssooooo.
Sleeeppy.
Nap.

CAR RIDE!
To some volcano thing.
Park building.
OH WATER FOUNTAIN!
Lava rocks.
Back in the car.
CAR RIDE!

Indian ruins.
Had.
To.
Stay.
In.
The.
Car.

Humans took pictures of each other.
Lucy and I sat in the car.
Worried about snakes biting humans.
Humans getting lost.
Humans never returning.
No more cookies.
No more pets.

Eh ruins.
Ruins schmuins.

And this happened twice...!
But at least at the second ruins we got to sit in front of the building while the humans took turns walking through these "ruins" that so interested them.
Eh, no cats to chase.
What's the point?

So then we were hot and got back in the car.
CAR RIDE!
Back to our camping spot.
TRAILER!
I LOVE MY TRAILER!
IT'S MY FAVORITE THING!

And then we got to play in the dirt.
PLAYING!
IN THE DIRT!
MY FAVORITE THING!
DIRT!
DIRT!
DIRT!
And then I was dirty.

And tired.
So had to take a nap.

And then we were all "happy campers"!

The End.