Grand Canyon National Park

Flashback Friday
The National Park Series - #1


As you may have gathered, one of our family traditions is to visit a different National Park each year. As we were traipsing along the trails this year, I decided that this subject would make a great "Flashback Friday" series, so here we go!
Our very first family vacation was during spring break of 1984. Technically, this one doesn't count as an "official" national park vacation, because we visited three of them in one week. That doesn't allow time to do any one of them justice.

For Christmas the year before, we got ourselves the proper equipment - tent, cooler, stove, and sleeping bags. The first stop was Zion National Park for a night or two. Then we headed south to the Grand Canyon. At first it was pleasant, but then the snow and cold came! One day Weston and I froze on the rim while Wayne hiked down to Phantom Ranch and back. Most normal people take two days and spend the night at the bottom, but who ever said we were normal? On the way home we stopped for a night at Bryce Canyon National Park. Even though we couldn't really afford it, instead of camping like planned we stayed at a hotel. The temperature was expected to go below freezing that night, and we figured being hauled in for child abuse was worse than spending $60 (or whatever it was).
That was just the beginning of our family camping adventures. The next year the "official" tradition started with a trip to Arches. See if you can figure out why we decided to start with that national park. And I'll see if I can keep the posts coming on a weekly basis.

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