A Little Behind the Curve

Josh and I started our Lord of the Rings adventure by reading the Hobbit. It was my first time into the world of JRR Tolkien and Josh had read it as a boy. Once we finished the Hobbit we were ready to move onto heavier things. We had many road trips planned, which include some of the posts below so we decided to listen to the Trilogy on disk. Although this process is much slower than reading, we enjoyed the narration by Rob Inglis. We have spent many a night hanging out with the rabbit and listening to Lord of The Rings. After we finish each book we watch the extended version of the movie and most of the extras (4 hours long!) pretty intense, we know, but we must see our task through. So now we are halfway through the Return of the King and and feel almost a part of the "fellowship". We laugh at ourselves because we know we are several years behind most fans. We also feel pretty nerdy listening to hour after hour of fantasy books on disc, but we are loving it.

Havasupai Falls: There and Back Again, A Bastian Tale

Upon moving to Arizona we saw a lot of pictures of these gorgeous turquoise blue waterfalls. When we finally figured out that this was Havasupai Falls, we decided we had to see it for ourselves. The falls are in the Grand Canyon drainage on an Indian reservation. It is about a 5 hour drive to the North of us, so we decided to make a trip of it. We were lucky to get permits as they fill up months in advance. The hike wasn't very hard, just long, which made it hard. It was 8 miles to the Supai village in the bottom. This a village that still gets their mail via a horse back rider. It was very odd to be in an isolated village in the middle of the good ol' USA. After the village there was another 2 miles to the falls and the camping area. We spent our 2nd day re-couping and swimming in the waterfalls. The water was cool and a beautiful blue color. Even I took a dip (I normally don't do cold water) and swam in the pool under the waterfall. That night we enjoyed a starry sky from our bug free zone (our tent). The third morning we packed up and set out on the trail just in time to see the sun coming up over Havasupai Falls, it was breathtaking. Coming out was a lot harder because now it was all up hill and we were pretty sore to begin with. The last mile and a half were particularly long, steep and hot! We just kept telling each other when we made it out we would find a chocolate malt somewhere. When we finally made it to the top, there was a sense of accomplishment to look down in the valley and see where we had come from that morning. On our drive home we stopped in the tiny town of Seligman on the old route 66 and found a 50's drive-in that made the best homemade chocolate malts ever. What a trip!