Flagstaff and Grand Falls

Lance had the entire weekend off last week, so we decided to head up to Flagstaff. Some of our friends from Iowa, the Metcalfs, were driving through Flagstaff on their way to Utah, so it was perfect timing to see them for a few hours! It was very lucky for us when we moved to Iowa for a year, that we had such good friends that lived four doors down from us and they were also applying to Oral Surgery programs. It was awesome to get together again after almost a year!

Flagstaff: such pretty scenery! And so different from the more desert-y parts of the state.

The kids: Madeline, Ellie, Addi, Evelyn, Blake

Taysia and Me

After they had to leave, we decided to go to Grand Falls which is known as the "Niagara Falls of the West." We knew it was out in the middle of nowhere, but just kept following the instructions we had found online...including driving on "unmarked Indian Road 6910." It was quite the adventure.

Driving on the Navajo Reservation, looking for the unmarked road...

 Found it and stayed on it for 10 miles. It did NOT look like there were going to be any amazing waterfalls around here, so we were semi-worried.

We finally arrived!

 And...we had a flat tire. Not one of those drive-it-back-and-fill-it-with-air kind either. This thing was FLAT.

 The falls were beautiful. Sometimes they are known as the "chocolate falls" because of all the mud that gets washed down the river

The waterfalls don't look that big from the pictures, but they were huge. The biggest falls start near the bottom of these ones and fall into the river. I couldn't get a picture of them unless I wanted to stand on the edge of the cliff and take a picture straight down...and there was no way I was about to do that.

 Lance was thrilled to be changing our tire in such ideal conditions, but we made it all the way back to Phoenix on our little spare. Thank goodness we had one, or this may have turned into quite the trip!

 This is the same river that carves through the Grand Canyon, which was not too far from here. From the upper part (pictured directly below) it looks like a slow-flowing river with minimal water, but after going off the falls, you can see just how big the river really is. It was amazing!