Arizona (part 1)

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” 

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

We went to visit this lovely lady a couple of weekends ago.

She is working on the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona. When we started this adventure we each had our own little bucket list. Brent and my list were a little more on the adult emotional side of what we dream about for our family. Mattie really wanted to see volcanoes and dinosaurs. All Zadie wanted was to see Indians. I am pretty sure she had this picture in her mind of beaded head dresses and spears and nothing we said was going to change that image. Going to the reservation was the easiest way to check off her bucket list and to finally convince her that Indians are average joes just like us! :) Plus, we got to hang with someone we adore which totally helped all of us with our homesick blues.

I was so excited to see my friend that i didn't think to much about what we would do when we got to Arizona. She said we were going to go on a really cool hike and she was not lying!

 When we drove up to this place I had NO IDEA what to expect.

The visitor's center was pretty sweet. They had two Indian structures that you could look at and walk inside which the girls loved. One is still used for religious ceremonies on the reservation.

And we saw so many of these structures, hogans, on the reservation. They are the traditional Navajo Indian dwelling. 

Driving to the canyon was really strange. It is hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that this beautiful places are in the middle of this little nondescript town. 

We got out of our car and started to walk down a path and we were met with the most gorgeous view. We were standing on dirt and stone but staring down into a lush beautiful valley. It was a surreal experience, far more stunning than these pictures show.

We started our trek to the bottom of the canyon walking on cool stone steps, stumbling through dark tunnels, and hiding in little caves along the way. The hike was around 3 miles round trip and Zadie did the whole thing! That may not sound that hard but you have to factor in that the end of the hike is straight up out of the canyon. I was hurting so I know her little legs had to be so tired too! Mattie crashed in the ergo on Brent's back. She has gotten really good about taking little power naps on our hikes and waking up ready to go conquer the world again!

The bottom of the canyon was like.... WOW! It was green even though the river was completely dried up. It was so crazy to look up and see these huge stone walls climbing to the sky. It was a breathtaking view.

We had several people on the hike confuse Candice for the girl's mom. We were cracking up. I didn't blame them, my blond babies do look like they could come from her!

Can you see the cat face???

There were really cool ruins built into the side of the canyon walls and on the canyon floor called the White House Ruins. They are said to have been occupied between 1040 and 1275 AD. I felt like I was in one of my old History text books. We were all dying to walk around the ruins in the nook on the wall. I wonder what is would have felt like to live and raise my kids so high off the ground... talk about upping the stress factors!

We also visited Spider Rock while we were in the area. Cool fact, part of the new Lone Ranger movie was filmed in Canyon de Chelly and Spider Rock. I haven't seen it yet but now I am going to have to make it happen!

We are going to have to add binoculars to the girls' Christmas list this year. They were in love with Candice's pair!

The views were so incredible that I feel like my brain had a hard time processing it all. Everything we looked at was so vast, the sky, the canyon, the rocks... It was hard to take everything in. But I would not say it was overwhelming. It was grounding in the way that it makes it impossible not realize what a tiny part we are in the intricate system of our world. It is good to be reminded how ancient our planet is and how we, as humans, are just one stage of the earth's long life. It makes you want to take yourself less serious, which is always a good thing in my book! 

We were going to stick around the reservation and explore the next day, but we didn't realize the Navajo nation is over 27 thousand miles big. That would have taken us a little longer than a day... ;) So we explored some Navajo trading posts and we headed to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. The pictures from that adventure are coming your way soon! Until then, we are sending you guys all our love.

The Browns <3

City Exploring

“The hard part isn’t the first step, or the second step [on the way towards your goal]. It’s the 5th, 6th and 7th steps when you’re in so deep you forget why you took that initial step in the first place. The middle of the tunnel, when you left the light behind you but you can’t yet see it in front of you either. When you have to trust that whatever ‘insane’ notion came over you to take the first step is still worth it now that you don’t see where it’s headed anymore. That’s the hard part of doing something big/great. It’s when you’re halfway up the mountain and you’re too far up to turn back but you can’t see the summit camp yet.”
- The Frenchman

       We have officially be in New Mexico for three weeks today. Those three weeks have been filled with so much, so much adventure, so much new, so much scary, so much laughter, so much sadness. At this point if I had to say what I look forward to the most I would say getting into our rhythm as a family. A week ago, heck two days ago, I would have told you that I didn't think we had a rhythm anymore, that we left that behind in Florida with our house, our other car, and all the people we love. But today I feel it. Like a breath of fresh air I feel the kids starting to settle, my emotions evening out, and Albuquerque beginning to feel familiar.  I am so grateful. Now, if we can get through this last move into our forever rental (until January ;) this weekend I will do a victory dance!

      I've said it before and I'll probably say it a whole lot more, I love the mountains. We all really love the mountains. Anytime we have a spare couple of hours you can usually find us with our hiking shoes on exploring some open space. It is really quite lovely and comes very close to making this emotional roller coaster of moving a family across the country worth it!

There are so many hummingbirds here right now!

We decided to try something different last weekend and we went to explore another part of the city. Albuquerque offers a day pass that will get you into their BioPark zoo, aquarium, and prize winning gardens. They even have a train that will take visitors from the zoo through downtown to the aquarium and gardens. We took an entire eight hour day (whew!) and visited all three places.

They had a lot of animals that we don't have in Pensacola which is understandable considering this is a much bigger city. The Zoo was really big and it was very educational! Although, I had to finally come to terms with myself about how much I really don't enjoy zoos. It is not as much a moral issue, I know zoos do a lot of great things to help animals, it is just about personal preference. My preference is to not go to a zoo again for a long long time. Luckily, my family is on the same page as me, as interesting as we found the zoo the aquarium and the gardens stole the show. 

The kids area of the gardens began with a beautiful castle

Then it moved into a life-sized fruit and vegetable exhibit

everything in the kid's garden was meant to be climbed and explored

the small details are what really made the garden amazing

there was a huge garden train that meandered through a section
 between the kid's garden and the butterfly garden

these beautiful flowers are all over New Mexico!

the pond was beautiful and the greenhouse had several different themed gardens
based on different climates.

Cool plant in the arid garden 

Brent loved this butterfly garden

Mediterranean garden

the healing garden was my favorite part

Why, hello handsome.... 

We both loved the rocks in the herb garden

the entrance to the Japanese garden

there are also a lot of Jack Rabbits in NM

they even built a waterfall

and very interesting paths through the foliage

the Japanese garden was very peaceful

this is a working farm that supplies fresh food
to a restaurant on the grounds of the garden

the original farm house that they leave open for people to tour

this part definitely had us dreaming of owning our own land one day...
I think it probably makes everyone have that same day dream ;)

walking the path back to leave the gardens

the dragon guarding the kids area

The only thing we regretted about the day was spending so much time in the zoo and getting so little time in the gardens. It is not surprising at all that National Geographic voted it in the top 5 gardens in the country. The aquarium was small but really nice. They had a great Gulf of Mexico exhibit that made us feel right at home! We had a great day and we were completely exhausted by the end of it. Albuquerque really is just one of the coolest towns I have visited. It is hard to stop exploring because there is always more to see!

Until next time,

The Brown Family <3