bonding with my brother in arizona

after two major trips back to back, i think it's time for this gnomad to kick up his heels and relax for a while. fortunately, i have two months before my next hike- perhaps my blisters (my sandals just aren't the best footwear for long hikes) will have settled by then.

on our trip, i asked duff if she'd mind taking a few pictures of me. i hadn't realized how many there were until i started looking through her album. here are some of my favorites:

we stopped at tuzigoot national monument on the way to seligman, arizona, where we spent the night on april 20th.



after our quick stop at tuzigoot, we drove across the verde valley to jerome, arizona- duff's favorite "ghost" town.


duff even let my friends and i take a quick ride in an old mining car.....well, we pretended to, anyway.


after spending a little time in jerome, we drove through prescott to seligman, where we spent the night.

the next morning, my friends and i slept in while duff and her friends ate breakfast at a small diner across from our motel. when they finished, they came and picked us up, and we headed up to the hualapai hilltop to begin our hike to the havasupai campground.

my brother f-stop is in barcelona right now, but my other brother, hotdog, let me stash some of my gear in his backpack. here we are at the trailhead:

and further along the trail.....

stopping for a moment with friends
(left to right: packer, the twins from ohio, paddy, bodhi, hotdog, and sarah)




here are hotdog and i in front of the first waterfall- navajo falls.


here we are at the second waterfall, havasu falls. the water here falls 100 feet.


here we are at the base of mooney falls- a 200 foot drop.

a little further down the trail, with mooney falls in the background


and here we are at beaver falls, right before we turned around and headed back to camp.


the next day, sunday april 23rd, we got a late start heading out of camp, and when we reached the village, it was decided that we'd treat ourselves to a helicopter ride back to the hilltop. fortunately for us, gnomes flew free with each paying passenger. after we landed, we loaded up the truck and drove over to the touristy portion of grand canyon national park.

after a much needed shower and an early bedtime (hotdog and i crashed while the duff and her friend karen went off in search of dinner), we awoke the next morning and headed to the rim of the canyon. neither hotdog nor i had ever been in this part of the canyon before, so naturally, we asked duff if she'd mind taking a couple "touristy" pictures for us.



...and here we are near the eastern entrance to the park, at the desert view watchtower.


after leaving the canyon, we made brief stops at wupatki ruins and sunset crater volcano, and then drove the rest of the way back to phoenix.




whew! that's a lot of photos. in fact, it's almost as many photos as i have blisters to treat before the next hike. you wouldn't happen to have some hiking boots i could borrow, would you?