Someone Else's Boring Vacation Photos, Part One

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING EXCESSIVELY LONG POST HAS LOTS OF BORING PHOTOS FROM SOMEONE ELSE'S VACATION. YOU WILL PROBABLY FALL ASLEEP (OR WISH YOU COULD). I WILL ATTEMPT TO SPICE IT UP WITH SOME WITTY DIALOGUE. IT MIGHT BE WORTH A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME, AS THERE'S AN EPIC TALE AT THE END....

It went well from the start:

Can you read the sign? Click to enlarge if you cannot. Yes. This is what bored big brothers on vacation do to helpless little sisters. When deprived of helpless little sisters to torment, big brothers do this to defenseless little brothers. See Luke Skywalker over there? He's trying really hard to be INVISIBLE.

Welcome to our vacation. This is last summer, and we start off at Lake Powell, this being Glen Canyon Dam. We waited 15 minutes to meet up with my sister and reclaim Screamapillar, who had flown down to LA to visit the week before. We waited 15 minutes TWELVE TIMES. If you do the math, yes, that is three hours. Long time to wait in that infernal heat. We love you anyway, Auntie Debs. Mostly because you took the Screamapillar away for a week.

We met up with Uncle Scopp (a nickname coined by Thing One at the age of two) in Williams for some good ole camping out. On lava rocks. At the Lovely Circle Pines KOA. Now, under normal circumstances I would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS recommend camping in July in Arizona. Usually this would be a potentially fatal idea. But camping in Williams is highly recommended. It was NOT HOT. At least, not killer hot. Hot enough to want to go swimming, but cool enough to go hiking.

The reason we were camping on lava rocks is because of the volcano. Volcanoes are cool. Literally. The have awesome lava tubes you can hike into and they are about 50 degrees year round. Refreshing. I should clarify: DEAD volcanoes are refreshing. LIVE volcanoes are more like visiting Pheonix. Not recommeded.

We did a bit of hiking, and the people with short legs didn't enjoy it at first. Notice Eclair in the photo above. In need of an attitude adjustment.

In this photo, Thing One is liberally applying the needed attitude adjustment:

(and why do Eclair's shoes look like they have been chewed on by a dog? Because she likes them that way. You just try to take them away from her. I dare you.)

And in this photo, it appears to have worked:


See? It works. She is happy. That is a real smile. Enjoy it while it lasts.

There go the boys, hopping down the bunny trail. And look! another variation of THE HAND! from Thing Two. Big surprise. And the girls, awaiting them at the bottom, making sure they stay on the trail and follow the arrow left, instead of the more exciting, forbidden trail to the right. Good girls.


While the girls were sitting and waiting for the slow photographer, they made a friend: meet Mr. Bumpy. Hello, Mr. Bumpy. Goodbye Mr. Bumpy. It was a very brief friendship.


In this photo, the boys have discovered a lava tube. "Hither, thou foul females! We claim this dangerous cavern for ourselves! Go, forthwith, and find your own darn hole in the ground!"



"Come sister-cousin! We shall find our own glorious grotto, which we will decorate in hot pink and zebra stripes and deny our cruel brothers access!"


One of those lovely lava tubes does magic tricks. A very cool and enjoyable stream of air flows continually from this hole. Next to that dog-eaten shoe, Thing two is trying to levitate her guide book on the airflow...

AND IT WORKED!! TAA DAAA! Magical floating wapu-somthing guide book!!


And this, this was just cool. So I took a picture of it. Rock formed by water. Awesome.


And we went to the grand canyon, too. Can I tell you how much I love my polarizing filter? Very, very muchly. Ooohhh, pitty!


"Look, Eclair! A very big hole! Did you have anything to do with this?"
"No, Mama. I saw Thing Two do it. He made the hole."


Well, Thing Two sure did it this time. See the big rock behind Luke Skywalker's pasty heat-stroked head? The one that hangs out there in the middle of nowhere, where a fall would mean plummeting for a thousand feet before being smooshed on the canyon floor below?


Yeah, that's Thing Two, hiking out on the rock. Some German tourists standing next to us were quite alarmed. "Vee arr hoppy our boy is sleeeeping in the recreeeationul veeehicle. We would heete for heem to get any ideeeas from that naughty boy oot der."

Thanks for the extra gray hairs, son.


Alas, this post waxes overlong. So I leave you with the teaser for "Someone Else's Boring Vacation Photos, Part Two."

This is our party after our 2 hour hike on an unmarked, unlit trail into a very amazing lava tube, immediately before the incident that made this: THE MOST EPIC FAMILY VACATION EVER.