Thursday, August 25, 2016

Roadtripping...



Well... I'm back! Finally! (At least for this post...)☺

So, most of my readers know that my family was away on vacation for the last ten days. Well, I've decided to post a bunch of pictures and tell you a bit about our adventures!

The Grand Canyon was our destination, but we ended up seeing many different places.
We took a round about way to Arizona and were able to visit Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Let me just say... It was Amazing!

       At the beginning of our trip, we drove through North Dakota... And it really is flat.




   But the closer we got to Montana, the more hills, and even rocky canyons we saw... We stopped at Teddy Roosevelt National Park (In North Dakota). It looked like a mini Grand Canyon!




 We eventually made it to Montana... And Mountains!



    When we got to Yellowstone, I was amazed at all of the trees and mountains! The trees grew so close together, I'm not sure one could walk through them!









    Old Faithful (one of the many geysers) was a must see once we were there. We also got to see a few other geysers around the park, and some deep holes in the earth filled with boiling hot water, and spewing gases. It smelled like burning eggs... But I guess it was just the sulfur we were smelling.
You had to be careful not to step off of the boardwalk, because you could accidentally step on an extremely thin sheet of earth and go down into a hot pool of water! The Buffalo obviously didn't get the memo though, and you could see their footprints in the hot mud.

                                              (A smaller geyser...↓)


Here is a pool that was filled with Boiling Water... You could see bubbles coming up from the bottom!




   Most of the trees around the geysers and pools were dead...



Old Faithful... It only shoots out once every hour and fifteen minutes or so.




                            
  Just talking a Sunday stroll... In the middle of the road!☺



   Another hole going deep underground... You could hear the gas and water pushing their way out.









A Waterfall... It was absolutely Amazing!

 More Mountains...


We eventually made our way through Idaho, and then Utah. We stopped at The Great Salt Lake in Utah. It was sorta weird... Just a huge Salt Lake! ☺ The only things that live in the lake are algae and brine shrimp (they're REALLY tiny!). The lake shore was covered (and I mean covered) in tiny flies that eat the shrimp and algae. Wherever you stepped a little cloud of flies would shoot up! They were everywhere!












Arizona!! Land of desert, more desert, and... Is that a tree??! Jk... Sorta. ☺
So, I was messing around with my camera and discovered I could switch the setting so that the red in the rock really came out in the pictures. I was pretty excited!






There actually was more vegetation in the desert than I was expecting. There was still a lot of rock and sand, but still, there where a lot of shrub type plants, and more grass than I thought was possible.










The Grand Canyon was Absolutely Gorgeous! When people say that the pictures don't compare... well, they're right! It was so deep and wide and just downright Huge!

 We got stuck in a hail storm on the second day. When it passed us you could see it drifting over the Canyon!













We ended up hiking down the side of the rocks a little ways on one side... which was a tad bit scary to say the least. My dad and I got so close to the edge of a cliff, we could almost see straight down!☺







  We made our way toward New Mexico and ate at a really cool Mexican restaurant in Sedona, Arizona. The view was amazing!


 This hummingbird was just hanging out around the flowers outside...

New Mexico!


 White Sands, New Mexico... You could see were they had used plows to make a road through there!
We got there in the evening the first day, which was perfect! The sun was just going down and it wasn't too hot. We ended up going back the day after... and although the sun was behind the clouds for the most part, when it came out, it came out with gusto!


















After White Sands, it was time to head home. We had to drive around seventeen hours in two days to get home. Great Fun! Lol! I actually enjoy being cramped in the car on road trips. It's cozy!☺

We drove through Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa to get home. It was an amazing trip!

People, God is Great. God is Good.
  I am so extremely blessed to be able to go on such an adventure with my family. I'm also extremely blessed to be able to explore God's Oh-So-Vast creation. I'm so Grateful we made it home safely. And, I'm so thankful for Jesus. I was reminded on this trip again and again just how much He loves us. And not because of anything I've done. Just because.☺

I hope you all are having wonderful adventures this Summer. And I hope you catch a glimpse of Christ in this wonderful Season!

Until next time,

Makayla♥

P.S. Shout out to my Dad who drove us all that way! It wasn't so bad... was it? By the way... how much was the coffee bill?☺