Phew! We did it! We camped seven days and we hit Bryce Canyon, The Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Ouray, CO. We were on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for my 40th birthday, which was truly divine. I had never been there before and I actually started crying when I first laid eyes on it. I had seen myriad pictures of the place, as we all have, but standing there on the edge, hands and feet tingling and head slightly buzzing from a strong human response to the height and the expanse, I was overtaken. Your body actually responds to The Grand Canyon!

On a pure enjoyment level, I must admit that I enjoyed Bryce Canyon more than the Grand one. You can actually tackle Bryce and get to know it a bit in a day or two (though I would have loved more!). At the Grand Canyon, even though we hiked (and the girls did marvelously with our 1,500-foot elevation drop and then gain) I got the feeling that I could spend weeks there and still be an outsider, an interloper.

Mesa Verde was interesting but I doubt I’d go back again. Definitely worth a first visit.

But the drive from MV to Ouray blew me away! The San Juans are spectacular! Poor Dave had to drive the narrow, two-lane road pulling a camper and I think he white-knuckled a lot of it. There was some construction with lots of signs that said, “Shoulder Drops Ahead.” gulp. In Ouray, we visited Box Canyon Falls, which were nearly as terrifyingly powerful as the Grand Canyon!

So, now, we are essentially moving back IN to our house, complete with enough laundry to make me cry.

Here’s a fun pic of me and the girls at Bryce! (I think it will enlarge if you click it.)

Because Leap Pad told me so!

Delaney was playing with her “Human Body” book on Leap Pad. She yelled, “Mom, come here!”

So, I walked into her room and she said, “Listen!”

She used that green wand to push on the face of a lady in the book who was wearing frumpy clothes, had an ‘easy’ haircut such as a bob, and even looked, well, old. The cheery Leap Pad voice piped up and said, “Between the ages of 40 and 50, people are considered Middle Age. They get gray hair, their metabolism slows down, and they tend to put on weight.”

Delaney looked up at me and said, “You’re going to be 40!”

Then she proceeded to click on the woman’s hair and the damn Leap Pad informed us that gray hair occurs when the body produces less pigment. Again, my darling daughter looked at me and said, “Now we know why!”