Happy Thursday friends.
I kept meaning to blog about our Spring Break trip. But coronavirus…
I thought I’d write in two parts. Today, I thought I’d share about the vacation that we planned. Well, that I planned. Last July. When I couldn’t have fathomed what March 2020 would look like.
Then, in Part 2, I’ll write about the vacation that happened. Still very good. But different. Which is okay.
My sweet friend Sarah posted amazing pictures from Utah and Arizona last May from their nearly two week family vacation. I immediately reached out to her for her itinerary because I wanted to do what she did!
I stole from it liberally and it’s that itinerary I’m sharing with you in case you want to take your family to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.
We booked flights into Phoenix on the Saturday before Spring Break and out of Las Vegas the following Saturday.
From Saturday to Wednesday, we would stay in Flagstaff so we could hit Sedona and the Grand Canyon. Wednesday, we would relocate to Springdale, Utah to do those three days of activities. It was a fair amount of driving but I rented a minivan (much to my family’s ridicule), so they had space to spread out and play travel games and read books.
I absolutely loved our VRBO house. It was in a neighborhood but set back off the beaten path in all these tall trees. It had a pool table and ping pong table and a grill and a hot tub (whenever I look for a VRBO house, I require a grill and hot tube, it definitely narrows my options but my family loves it!).
We arrived about lunch time which gave us time to get to know the area, do our grocery shopping and settle in before the days ahead.
The remainder of the schedule looked like this:
Sunday – Sedona, ride the Sedona Trolley up to the Chapel of the Holy Cross, have lunch at Sedona Pizza and ice cream at Black Cow, and then take the Broken Arrow Pink Jeep tour (lots more on this fabulous tour tomorrow).
Monday – Hike Sedona or take the day and visit the Out of Africa Wildlife Park in Camp Verde (we ended up switch our Monday and Tuesday).
Tuesday – Spend the day in the Grand Canyon, hike the South Rim, take the south rim trail to El Tovar. I meant to make dinner reservations at El Tovar 60 days out like the recommend but forgot to and I’m glad we didn’t – it was nice to have no schedule this day. Also, I looked at the train ride into Grand Canyon, but after researching it, the landscape isn’t that great on the ride and it doesn’t actually take you around Grand Canyon only to Grand Canyon, so unless you just want your kids to experience a train I wouldn’t spend the money.
Wednesday – the long day! Clean and check out of the VRBO house, and pack lunches for the float trip. Drive the over 2 hours from Flagstaff to Page to go on the Lake Powell Wilderness River Adventure. This lets you see the dam, Lake Powell, and Glen Canyon. There are amazing slot canyons in Page too but I couldn’t make both things work because in the spring the float trip doesn’t depart until 10 am and you return at 3 pm.
This was sadly where our trip ended, but the remainder of the trip promised to be amazing. We would drive Wednesday night to Springdale and stay at the Desert Pearl Inn at the base of Zion National Park.
Thursday – We booked the Peek A Boo Slot Canyon Tour in Kenab through the Kanab Tour Company. You go four wheeling through gorgeous slot canyons over the afternoon.
Friday – Sticking with the highly recommended Kanab Tour Company, we booked a guided all day tour of Zion National Park.
Then on Saturday, we’d catch a noontime flight out of Las Vegas. A word of caution, rental cars are a lot more expensive if you drop them in a different location than you pick them up. Even with a corporate discount, the price was steep.
Because Spring Break is their peak season, I booked everything way in advance to ensure we got the lodging and tours we wanted for the days we wanted. There was tons of time built in for leisurely mornings (Wednesday and Saturday were our only early days) and there was lots of time for grilling out dinner and relaxing in the hot tub or playing a rousing game of ping pong.
We really did love our trip, but more on what happened in the next installment!
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