Everyday Adventures. Locally and Beyond.: The Grand Canyon Lives Up to Its Name

I am not sure exactly what I was expecting, but the Grand Canyon is, well, very grand. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like if you found yourself in the middle not knowing where it ends or how to get out.

On our drive over, our first stop was Scottsdale, a wealthy suburb of Phoenix that has a lot of art galleries and a country western feel. Random, but I liked it and it worked.

We also stopped at a Frank Lloyd Wright house that had no shortage of awesome architectural features, intriguing sculptures and an abundance of cacti. A good cactus makes me so happy and I wanted to hug them, but thought that might have less than stellar consequences.

We grabbed lunch in the middle of nowhere (literally) and unfortunately the restaurant’s only redeeming value was the photo opportunity with the wood bumblebee in front. For the first time, Yelp unfortunately failed me with this place.

Whenever I go on road trips, I like to play a game every once in a while called "see a sign for something cool and visit it". Sure enough, we were driving along and I see a sign for "Montezuma Castle" which sounded interesting. I have no idea who Montezuma is, or why they deserve a castle, but I was sure that this castle would be incredible. And it was, but in a much different way than I expected. Rather than a large fairy tale style structure like those in Europe, this was a 20-room multi-level dwelling constructed into the side of a limestone cliff circa 1425. It was amazing to learn about how the people of this time were resourceful in making the steep land that they had work using a series of ladders to get to the different levels. The structure also helped ward off enemy tribes since it was difficult to reach some of the upper levels of the castle. I consider that a successful round of "see a sign for something cool and visit it" for sure!