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Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

spring break

The Vacation That We Had

April 16, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

I wrote last week about the Spring Break vacation that we planned. I meant to write the next day about how it all actually unfolded. But, like anything during this time of coronavirus, plans are not to be followed. You just do your best, homeschool your kids, and work and cook (boy do you cook…).

We had a plan ready to depart for Phoenix on Saturday morning, March 14th. But things were evolving so quickly with the spread of the virus. Those folks that had Spring Break a week before us had an easier decision. Ours was hard.

So Bray and I sat in his office, on Friday the 13th, and went back and forth on whether to leave. Whether to catch our flight. Cancel the vacation. Drive. We were all over the map.

We decided to go. Aside from the plane, this was a very socially distant sort of a vacation. We had a VRBO rental house. We were going to visit national parks and wide open spaces.

I remain grateful we made that decision, even though vacation didn’t exactly follow the plan.

The flight, while full, was uneventful. We’d rented a mini van, which the kids heckled me about but it sure came in handy, and arrived at the house without a hiccup. It was fabulous.

A chalet with bits of snow flecks around it when we arrived and lots of snow around it when we left. A ping pong table and pool table which we put to good use, every day. A wooden deck overlooking tall trees with a hot tub and grill, all of which the Vincent family uses daily.

The vacation began as planned.

Sunday we spent a wonderful day in Sedona. We ate at Sedona Pizza after a trolley ride (we did not like the trolley ride all that much, and it was crowded which we were trying to avoid, but it was our best bet to see the Chapel of the Holy Cross which is a must see in Sedona). We hiked down through the creek/river to walk off our pizza and then stopped at the Black Cow from some ice cream.

We went on an amazing Broken Arrow Pink Jeep tour with a fabulous guide. He had us in stitches the whole time. It was just us and a family of three from Ohio so we enjoyed the privacy of the tour. The kids still say it was the best part of vacation. And you cannot beat the views. We got to get out and hike in parts of the red rocks you couldn’t access any other way.

We returned home to steaks and chicken and ping pong tournaments and hot tubbing. It was perfect.

But the news was darkening. And it looked like the National Parks might close at some point. So we bumped our Tuesday trip to Grand Canyon to Monday. This was an easy switch because we didn’t have any tours booked.

We drove up to the Grand Canyon’s south rim and spent the day there. We packed a picnic and ate lunch with a view. We visited the cool historic hotel and hiked around with ice cream cones. All of the museums and tour information areas closed that day so we spent the day outside but the weather was absolutely spectacular so it played in our favor. Parking was a nightmare but we’d planned to walk all day so walk we did.

We had downloaded the free fourth grade National Parks pass and really enjoyed getting to zip through the quick line with our free pass.

Since we’d swapped the Grand Canyon for Monday, on Tuesday we enjoyed the Out of Africa Wildlife Park just outside of Sedona in Camp Verde. It’s in the middle of nowhere and it wasn’t crowded but it gave the kids a chance to see a lot of amazing wild animals up close. The owners give animal talks, the Park also serves as an animal rescue for all sorts of animals, so we saw some interesting animals and learned new facts while getting to walk A LOT around the park on yet another gorgeous day. On our way home, we stopped and ate the West version of Mexican food (a hole in the wall on Route 66 – such fun), never realizing that would be our last time inside of a restaurant for who knows how long.

By the time we got home, the President was announcing orders to keep gatherings under 10 people and the health alerts were more ominous. This time, we decided we would have to change our plans.

We told the kids that we would head back, in the rental van, to Houston after our float trip on Wednesday. As you can imagine, there was a lot of protests and sadness. But the next leg of the trip would have taken us to a hotel in Utah, for our slot canyon and Zion National Park tour. We’d decided not to fly out of Las Vegas, so going even further from home wasn’t a good solution. Plus, it would put us in a hotel with other folks from around the country.

We considered driving to Albuquerque and flying from there, but ultimately chose to avoid the airports altogether.

On the upside, Wednesday was supposed to be a terrible weather day. Rain and potential sleet was forecasted for Lake Powell where our trip was scheduled to be. And yet. We had one more spectacular day.

We picked up our float trip in Page, Arizona. The large boats typically take 32 people out for a float through Glen Canyon but our boat had 11 people so we sat nowhere near the other two families. It was breathtaking. We started at the Glen Canyon dam and then spent the next three plus hours floating through gorgeous rocks and canyons on calm waters. We stopped and checked out ancient petroglyphs and the kids got to write their name in the sand.

By the time we returned, via bus, to our departure location, we had to hit the road. We’d packed lots of snacks and sandwiches for the 21 hour journey home (stocking up at the Flagstaff Wal Mart the night before).

We drove from Page, Arizona, to the four corners so the eldest could stand on four states at once (his treat for having to cut vacation short). HOWEVER, note for you travelers, Four Corners is actually a monument BEHIND a fence that closes at 5 pm and there is absolutely nothing around it. Not even a gas station. So by the time we got there around 7 pm, we could only gaze at the four corners spot behind the fence. He did get to step on two states, but alas, that did not cheer him.

We got as far as Famington, New Mexico Wednesday night before having to stop and spend the night at a little Hampton Inn. We woke up early Thursday and powered through our longest day. Poor Bray. He was driving in snow and sleet that morning but by the time we got to Albuquerque the weather had cleared.

We made it to Abilene and a Hilton Garden Inn. They had room service so we got to just crash. The kids played ball in the parking lot and we had some wine as our reward.

Friday, we were up again, and unfortunately some pretty bleak weather hit for most of the trip to the Houston airport. Bray drove this leg entirely by himself (I’d split up the trip the day before), and we were home, after picking up our car at the airport, by 2 pm.

The kids were amazing on the road trip. We’d stopped at a Barnes and Noble and they read so many books and they learned the fun of Mad Libs and they did iPad coloring pages and it was truly spectacular. Our airfare is held as a credit so we are still planning to hit Utah just as soon as we’re allowed to travel again. The only money we lost was one night stay in the hotel.

And the trip was a gift. We laughed. We connected. We saw some really spectacular country. We prayed. We ate and cooked and slept and hiked. They saw their parents work through some really hard decisions and they learned to adapt. Plus, now that we are on lockdown for an undefined period of time, it was an extraordinary gift to get to be out of our house just before being shut in.

I highly recommend the national park trip. Now, between Yosemite and Grand Canyon, these family vacations have been our favorites!

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: spring break

The Vacation That Was Planned

April 2, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

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!

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: spring break, vacation

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