Since it’s the weekend and I’d absolutely LOVE to be vacationing again right about now :D, I thought I’d continue on our Arizona Griswold Family Vacation Recaps. The weather turned INSANE on Day 6. By INSANE, I mean there was hail the size of fifty cent pieces, thunder, lightening, flash flooding, but, more importantly TORNADOS!
We probably should’ve listened though because the tornados actually picked up a semi truck, a train and demolished a mobile home park….oh, like 5 miles from where we were staying and on the freeway we usually would have taken out of town. THIS ARTICLE shows you some pictures of the devastation ~ CRAZY!
The crazy thing is that didn’t really stop us from heading out…being you know, the Californian’s we are and all….we had plans 😉 Slide Rock Park, Red Rock Park and Montezuma’s Castle to be more specific.
The sky pretty much looked like this when we left with LOTS of rain.
One benefit of all the rain ~ Waterfalls!
The rocks/mountains on your way to Slide Rock & Red Rock Part are just absolutely AMAZING. The red and orange is so vivid ~ cameras seriously do not capture the beauty.
Stop #1 ~ Slide Rock Park! We parked & paid our $10 for our car. Ironically the rain/hail let up enough for us to walk down the path to “The Slide”.
I really wonder if the rangers actually live here on site – wouldn’t that be fun?!
I dressed appropriately for our walk ~ a little rain and flip flops never hurt anyone….LOL. I didn’t want to get my tennis shoes muddy 😀
They made the trail sound like it’s just a walk in the park so no real hiking…..
Funny how everyone’s definition is a little different. It actually wasn’t bad if you weren’t in flip flops 😉
Slide Rock Park is SO COOL ~ it’s a huge natural rock slide that you slide down on. We opted not to swim/slide on the day we went because of all the lightning :(
However, we did brave walking all the way to the top in the rain to take pictures.
This is the only bridge to get to the other side.
The rocks are vivid brownish red and so incredibly smooth, yet, not slippery.
Definitely the COOLEST slide ever….maybe we will have to make a trip back just to “slide down the slide”.
We stopped along the way to Montezuma’s Castle to snap a few shots from our car. I totally wish you all could see how beautiful this part of Arizona is.
Montezuma’s Castle is a naturally preserved cliff dwelling that is over 1,000 years old in the form of a 20 foot high rise apartment.
When you walk down the path to the castle, they have display that shows you the inside of the “apartment” with voice over of how people used to live their lives in the cliff.
This is Montezuma’s Castle ~ it’s located in huge limestone rock.
People would enter through these wholes and climb ladders to get to whatever floor they needed to.
At the bottom of the limestone mountain, they had living areas similar to the ones we saw in the Island Trail.
I LOVED all the cool vegetation ~ it’s just so different from what we typically see in California.
Totally what I pictured for an Arizona Christmas tree 😉
No clue what these are called but The Husband wanted a picture LOL 🙂
The people survived off the land and off Beaver Creek.
The park ranger was telling us that two days ago this creek was completely dry. However, due to the massive amounts of rainfall (all during our week there lol), it was most likely going to “overflow” in the next day or so.
Our final destination was Red Rock State Park. If you ever visit the park, don’t worry about the visitor’s center as it costs $$ ~ just drive around Red Rock Road (it makes a big loop) and you get to see everything for free.
The weather definitely did not let us capture the beauty….I have to say I honestly think that Red Rock Park might be even more beautiful than the Grand Canyon because there are so many rock formations and the colors are all just AMAZING!
The Grand Canyon has size, but, Red Rock Park has the COLOR! Just check out the pictures that others have taken when it wasn’t raining and I am pretty sure you will agree 😀
In case you missed the other recaps, here are the links:
Arizona Recap #1 of the Grand Canyon
Arizona Recap #2:The Island Trail & Meteor Crater
Have an awesome Sunday all!
SO beautiful. We’re going to Flagstaff for Christmas… may have to make a day of Red Rock Park 🙂
I love the sights! I do need to get there, it is SO CLOSE to me.