Road Trip: Grand Canyon and Chaco Culture National Parks

I've finally recovered from my roadtrip, so I think it's time to start sharing it with everyone. This is going to take a few entries, so I figure I should start with our first few days....

Grand Canyon!!!
Dad and I weren't able to make it to the Grand Canyon on our trip from Houston to LA, but I was able to make it this time! We arrived at the camping site around midnight and, as you can see here from the picture of us in our tent on the first night, we were QUITE excited for what we were about to see the next morning....First order of business for the day was the same as almost everyday on the trip....PB&J and vitaminsThen we packed up and headed out to the canyon for about an hour before heading off to New Mexico


Chaco Culture
The next place we stayed was a national park in northern New Mexico called Chaco Culture. We basically had no idea about it before going, and actually got lost on the way. I blame mapquest. Once we started getting close, that's when we really got nervous because the road that leads up to the park is 20 minutes of this:

Just dirt and dessert in every direction. Needless to say, I was pretty skeptical. Luckily, this is what we found once we got there:


Turns out the place is the location of one of the oldest civilizations in America.

Here we are playing around inside a tiny little house that these Chaco people built. We found it right before the sun went down by our campsite:



The next day we looked other parts of the park and found what was apparently their main residential area. It was this huge building with a maze of rooms and meeting areas. The park set up a little do it yourself tour, so we walked through that before heading off to our next destination.


And after that was our first long drive. 16 hours to Houston! but of course we had to stop by a random amusement park in Albuquerque for about 45 minutes before heading back out...


That's us about to go on the most pain inducing roller coaster I have ever been on. I think my back was soar for a few hours after that one.

After that though, back to business. We drove for another 14 hours and made it into Houston in the early hours of the morning. But the rest will have to wait til another blog. Hope you guys have enjoyed this so far!

ttfn