I'm A Little Dutch Girl: Javelins and the Grand Canyon

DAY 7:

A little statue in Sedona

The first order of business each morning is to take Teddy, Pippa, and Otis our for their "relieve walk." I do this while John gently sleeps the morning way. LOL. It has been a little more difficult to take them potty by myself since Teddy needs some extra care. This morning Otis, as usual, was the first one out of the RV, but it was not as smooth as it usually is. He darted off under the RV and started to bark wildly. I had to reign him and settle him down before I could do anything else, but that was easier said than done. We were surrounded by a herd of Javelins, a native small pig that roam freely in this part of the country. At first I thought it was just six or seven, and then I saw the whole mob, probably two dozen of them. I had to pick Otis up and get us both to safety as I had heard that Javelins can be nasty if feeling threatened. Once they were gone, I took the pups for their walk, fed them their breakfast, and proceeded with our day.

The magnificent Grand Canyon did not disappoint! We took our rental car for the two hour drive to see this natural beauty on Wednesday, as the weather was predicted to be clear. We left our rig by 8:30 AM and got to our destination by 11:00ish. After checking into the Visitor's Center we approached the canyon cliffs with great anticipation, but we were saddened that the whole canyon was filled with milky clouds. You could only see the other side of the divide, and we were concerned that we may not get a full impression of the grandeur of this magnificent national park. We proceeded to take our pups for a three hour walk along the south rim. As the noontime hour came upon us, the clouds parted and we were able to soak in the beauty that the GC has to offer. We ventured out on some of the fenced cliffs to get a more impressive view of the canyon floor. We did get a peek of the Colorado River between the steep canyon walls. More pictures to follow.

Apple slices, nuts, and bottled water sustained us for lunch. Even the pups enjoyed some fruit. There were many tour busses loaded with visitors from Japan. Apparently we were a site to be seen as many of these visitors wanted to take a picture of us with our pups. Pippa especially seemed to be of high interest. We were amazed by the attire many of these Japanese people were wearing: stilettos, dress pants & shoes, shirts and ties, etc. You would have thought they were going out to a nice restaurant rather than a wonder of nature. By 3:00 PM all five of us were tuckered out and we were more than happy to get in our little rental and head back to camp in Sedona. Once we had arrived at our RV and changed our clothes, we headed out for our first dinner in a restaurant at The Golden Goose.

DAY 8:
Squealing during the wee hours of the morning brought to mind the Javelins I saw the previous day. They were surrounding our RV again and I had to let our pups know that all was okay. Today was a much needed day of rest. No long car ride for this family! Today we just want to stick around "home" and see a bit of the townsite Sedona. We did take our pups on an hour walk up a dry creek-bed so that we would feel better about leaving them in the car while we window-shopped. We met some of our neighbors and their dogs, sat on the patio while the dogs chewed on their toys in the doggie kennel, and I did some laundry. It was nice to just relax.