6 years 10 months 18 days

Day 2513. I went to bed at 1 am last night, and at 7 am my alarm clock already went off and woke us all up - an hour after the alarm clock in the hotel room had gone off (not set up by us) and woken us up the first time. We got up and went to the breakfast room to eat, then I returned to the room to teach from 8 to 9 am. Randy and the kids went to the lobby where they played, and Tammy and Emmy also did school books they have for the long summer break.

After I was done teaching, we packed up everything, and Randy loaded up the car. At 9:30 am we left and drove straight north to go to the Grand Canyon. It was an 80 minute drive. We had to pay an entrance fee, then parked on the parking lot by the visitor's center. We got the wheelchair out of the car, then we walked up the trail to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It was very close, and it was impressive from the start. What was less impressive was that there was no railing for much of the trail which scared me for the kids, so I kept them away from the edge. We walked on for a while; there were a few lookouts that had railings but even then I didn't get too close as I don't like heights, and it was a very long way down.

The kids were impressed - Emmy more by the canyon while Tammy was more impressed by the squirrels that were not scared of people and came all the way up to them to beg for food and be fed. Someone gave Tammy a piece of bread that she gave to a squirrel.

Emmy was the one more scared of the canyon than Tammy. There was a rock with a line of people in front of it as everyone wanted to get on top of it for a picture. We waited in line but then Emmy was too scared to stand on it so only Tammy had that impressive picture taken. Another time Tammy had no problem going all the way to the edge while Emmy had a hard time getting close.

After a while we reached a bus stop and decided to get on and let it take us to another lookout that was supposed to be impressive and that was close. The bus driver put the ramp out, then fasted Sammy's wheelchair in four places. It seemed like a little too much. After we got off, we walked to the geology museum and down the trail to another lookout. There Randy started talking with a black couple that then took a picture of us. On the way back to the bus stop we quickly hopped into the small museum where you also had a good view through the glass windows. Then we walked to the bus stop that took us back to the visitor center. Before heading to the car, we went to the restrooms, then we had to find parking lot 1 (out of 4). However, we walked in the wrong direction and ended up taking a huge detour, walking a long distance, before we finally got back to our car. It was frustrating. It was 12:30 pm by the time we got to the car, and we were getting hungry.

We had about 7 hours of driving ahead of us when we left there. First, we had to drive the 80 minutes back to Williams, AZ, then we turned east to go to Flagstaff where the first Chick-Fil-A on our route was. Everyone was eager to go there, and it looked like it had a playground.

We arrived there at 2 pm, and five hungry people sat down at a table and waited for their food. We then enjoyed eating it. After we were done, the kids went inside the playground and had fun there. Sammy pulled himself up into a standing position on a wheel. 

At 3:20 pm we got back into our car to finish our journey of the day. We had nearly 5 hours of driving left. We next stopped in Gallup at 7 pm to get gas and go to the bathroom. The plan was to not stop again as the kids still wanted to go in the pool. However, it was getting late again, especially since we lost an hour because of a time change. It was 9:30 pm by the time we pulled up at our hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I went to check us in and get our key which took some time as there were two people in line before me. In the meantime Randy was loading our luggage onto a cart. Tammy, Emmy and I then took the elevator up to our room. However, when we got in, we discovered that the room was dirty and had not been prepared for new guests. So we went back to the reception where the lady then offered us an upgrade but I turned it down as they would have had to pull out the sofabed. We just wanted our room and to still go swimming. Thankfully the pool was open until 10:30 pm. Also, we had ordered a pizza that Randy was supposed to pick up at 10:30 pm. By the time we had our new key, Randy was with us with his cart, so we all went upstairs together. However, this time we could not get the door to open. Once again, I went downstairs to the reception. This time the receptionist told me that you had to pull the handle up instead of down, so I went back upstairs to try - and it worked. 

It was nearly 10 pm already. We quickly put our swim suits on and went downstairs to the outside pool. Some young people had just left it. It was quite dark; only the hottub was lit up. We went into the water, then Randy left to pick up the pizza. But the kids were scared; all the trouble with the rooms had scared them. Emmy did not want me to turn the jacuzzi on, and Tammy was scared because it was late but we did have 20 minutes to enjoy the hot water. Sammy and I were having fun, and I was able to get the other two to laugh as well.

At 10:30 we left and returned to our room. I got the kids ready for bed, and they lay down on one of the two beds to sleep. They were asking where Daddy was, but I hadn't heard from him. I told them he'd be back any minute. At 10 pm he called me. There had been a power outage at the pizza restaurant so that they could not make the pizza. Randy had then stopped at a Walmart but I had his main credit card and he couldn't get the other card working so he had to leave empty handed. Just after 11 pm he walked back into the hotel room. Sammy was still up but then fell asleep right away. The kids had eaten the leftovers from Chick-Fil-A in the car but Randy and I were very hungry. He then ate some more leftovers, while I went to the lobby to find out what they had in their little mini-market that I could buy and eat. It was half-empty; all I could buy was a TV-dinner... chicken, mashed potatoes and corn. I bought it, put it into the microwave and was very glad to finally get to eat at 11:30 pm. My computer was already on, and I had started working on the pictures, then wrote my report. Now it's 1:30 am local time, and I really need to go to bed as well.