Havasupai

Havasupai is one of the most incredible places Patrick and I have ever been. That's an impressive claim considering we lived in Kauai. Havasupai is down in one of the canyons that goes into the Grand Canyon. You hike in 10 miles to the campground. The water comes from an underground spring so it has a lot of lime in it that makes it this incredible blue color. This is Havasu Falls as seen in the movie Next.

The lime also forms terraces in the river all along the way.
You can also see that the lime creates stalactite-like formations along the walls by the waterfalls. This is Mooney Falls.

To get to the bottom of Mooney Falls you get to go through this hole that has been dug through the rock.

Then you have to climb down the wall where there are chains bolted into the rock.

Further down the river there are a number of places to cliff jump and this rope swing.

This is about where we were, about 3 miles down river from the campground when we saw the helicopter come by. It hovered near us and held out a sign that said, "FLOOD". Then he after we started to walk back upstream, he pointed for us to walk DOWNstream. All he really did was confuse us. We waited about 30 minutes and then headed back toward the campground. The flood did come but the river only raised about 9 in. so we managed to make our way back to camp. This is Mooney falls again so you can compare the blue and brown waterfalls.

The next day the water was still brown but not quite so brown. This is a small part of Navajo falls.

This is me. You had to climb down this using this rope to get the the edge.

This is Havasu Falls again with brown water.

There are 600 Havasu indians that live in teh canyon. Their people have lived here for 800 years. We happened to be down there at the time of a festival.



This is Miss Havasupai herself. We got her autograph, too.


This is a part of the village. These rocks are called the guardians of the tribe.

On our way out of town, Patrick really wanted to get fry bread. It ended up being really tasty with beans and cheese.

On our hike out we walked through the thickest gnats I have ever encountered for about a half mile. He were spped walkign and my arm was getting just as tired as my legs from waving frantically in front of my face. When we got through we noticed that there were tons of dead gnats stuck in our hair. You can see them in this picture.

Horseshoes and Rust

Horseshoes is a great game that is just not played enough. People of all ages and adeptness can play fairly well together. This, of course, makes it a great game to play at a family gathering. Here you can see the spectators of one game looking on with amusement.

Grandpa Ben was the real professional here. He was giving us all tips on how to throw more accurately and how to make sure the horseshoe is open when it hits the pole thingy. Though he apparently never told me what the pole thingy is really called.

Melody was the MVP (Melody prefered MMP for Maui Mom Player. Jared said he would chant whatever she wanted) of the Jared Melody team.

Here's her ringer!

The team of Jared and Melody were whipping the buttuskis of the team of Grandpa Ben and Meghann at 6 points to 1. Then Grandpa Ben got a ringer to bring us closer. Then this remarkable thing happened...

If you are unfamiliar with the rules of Horseshoes, if one player gets a ringer, the next player can cancel it with another ringer and neither player gets a point.

Grandpa Ben and I were able to hold on long enough to win. Here is the picture that is going to be on our Wheaties box.

Here is Matisse throwing with all the spectators looking on.

Grandpa Ben showed us all up with this silent ringer. Oddly, I think I can hear a little ping on the video but it really was silent in real life. Is that possible?

Lucky for us there is a large, rusty piece of machinery to play on right by the horseshoe grounds. Notice you don't see any of the older, wiser people in these pictures.

Few things can make you ponder about life as deeply as standing in a scary wire cylinder with Patrick leering over your shoulder. Especially with Chase messing with the on/off buttons which may or may not be still functioning.

I'm sure there was absolutly no danger with these two getting the belt spining straight toward the jagged, rusty pinch that, with a wrong step, would surely take off a leg or two. They did escape unscathed.

Connecticut Waterfalls

Jared and Matisse found this great area where there is a river that flows over consecutive waterfalls close together. Its really fun to walk down stream from one beautiful waterfal to another. It was so fun that we went one week and then took Chase and Daniel the next week when they were in town. These are pictures from both waterfall visits.

Of course Patrick did a back flip.

The water was pretty cold so I could only convince 3 boys to go through the water to get in this pose.

Hee hee!

Jared and Daniel jumping together of the X logs.

That's Chase all the way at the top.