Flagstaff! Nearly time to come home...

Hi Everyone,

Well, our time in Arizona has been sooooooooooooooooo busy. We went through Nevada and Utah in our time and traveled 1700 km in our rental van. We saw Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam. We saw a lot of Casinos as we drove through Las Vegas, (or Lost Wages as Donald told us)
We had a very bumpy experience as we were transported to see Antelope Canyon on a tour.

And we saw the Grand Canyon from both the North and South sides, We went some way down the 'flamin highway' called Bright Angel Trail for a pleasant morning walk in our jandals and succeeded in prompting one American, as he walked by, to say in disgust and amazement 'Jandals?!' We (the girls only) walked around in our ball gowns at the Yavapai Point for pictures at the Grand Canyon. Although the sunset we planned on taking the pictures at was poor due to big storm clouds (yes it actually started raining at the G.C-well more like a large spits of rain before we waltzed to the car.) we have some beaut pictures I may put on the blog when I have a computer that will let us.

We slept on the dirt two nights, one lot of dirt was comfortable considering, the other....well lets just day that when at South Rim, Mather Campground-bring an rv or a few ground mats.

We also stayed in an Americas Best Value Inn at Henderson which we found was not far enough away from LV as we intended and could only find a little grocery shop with little good food... We ate junk (LCM bars called Rice Krispie Treats, and Pistacios, and oatmeal and honey bars and an occasional apple or orange) for breakfast lunch and tea one day (mind you-we were NOT happy about it, Mum was getting desperate by the next day to feed us properly).

We stayed with Donald's cousins at Prescott (pronounced Presskit), they were lovely and served us the most wonderful food we had had in days!

We met a lady called Jean (REALLY nice) who had done a tour in NZ and was with the group that ran a country dance night that my family attended in Hokitika (it happens every 2 years so all y'all-you gotta join us its SO fun). So it was great to meet someone all over again that had travelled in NZ. Funnily she only remembered Thomas ('...would recognise that smile anywhere...') until she talked to us for a while.

For Dad a highlight was discovering a tiny old mining town called Chloride. It was on the way to Hoover Dam, in the middle of the desert and it appeared the people survived through humour. There was a sculpture made with an old drive-chain and pistons and an air cleaner off a car to look like a centipede. A sign (hand painted) behind it titled it 'Seldom Seen Slim with his Centipede.' We did not see Slim! Dad had to get a photo of the 'Chloride Water Treatment Station' building. And he HAD to visit the fire station where he swapped his used fire brigade tee-shirt for a Chloride Fire Dept Tee and a hat! We nearly had to drag Dad away so we could get to Hoover Dam - and then we were too late for a dam tour.

Okay better go. We're going back to California today at mid-day. At the moment we are staying with the home-school family here in Flagstaff. They're so fun. They let us stay at their house yesterday night and the night before. They have 3 girls. Kelsey (who we helped make the most gorgeous pie ever. It was soooo goood. Yum yum yum yum delisiaso) And fraternal twins- Lindsey and Taylor. They're 11 and only 3 days younger than Junelle!!! They're lots of fun. They had a bow and wood toy arrow thing that Tom has been using lots. We have to keep telling him to stop aiming at birds (bluejays and red-headed woodpeckers) and squirrels.

Okay g2g. Will update with pic when possible.

Our love and Missing you all in NZ,
God Bless,
Tribe

(No we did not go into any casinos - we drove past at about 7.30 am when it was all quiet).