Grand Canyon Railway

Cousin Mike arranged for all of us to take the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams Arizona to the Grand Canyon. On the way up - we all rode together in a Pullman passenger car from 1910[?]






Once at the Grand Canyon, we toured the rim and took lots of pictures. A very warm day indeed. In the distance you could see smoke plumes from forest fires.












Cousin Tom, Cheryl and Joshua Jones













Dad, Cathy, Eric and I









Julie and Mike Jones













On the return trip, Eric and i found out you could upgrade to first class for the return trip. the train had a vintage VistaDome car that I REALLY wanted to check out - so Eric indulged me and we upgraded.





The VistaDome was awesome. I loved it. We would have liked to share the return ride with the rest of the family, but instead got to sit with the "Morbidly Obese Family" who made no pretenses whatsoever of attacking the buffet offered when we left the station. Apparently Couth Couth was not on the menu.

Spoons*

What are cousins to do for entertainment? Spoons of course. A rapid fire game, seemingly simple in rules, yet complex in dynamics.

(Initiation of new players is always interesting as they pick up the subtle strategies after a few hands - Cathy)




We commandeered the Sante Fe room for our ritual Friday night.

















*no actual furniture was destroyed during this ritual.

Sedona

Cathy, Dad, Eric and I are in Arizona for Uncle Bob and Aunt Clare's 50th anniversary. We all gathered today at the house to caravan up to Williams. "Caravaning" in our family means - lose everyone as fast as possible by any means. We drove up in Mike's truck with Mary, Cathy, Dad, Eric and I.



Cathy checking her reach to the cooler for our trip.

(Too bad the windows were WAY too HOT to actually perform this manuever in transit! - Cathy)






We took a detour to see Sedona on our way to Williams.

(We weren't lost, we were following map 1.0, blissfully ignorant of the latest upgrade. - Cathy)






The road from Sedona to Flagstaff was closed due to forest fires. So our stay in Sedona was momentary as we backtracked to the highway. Very beautiful however.

(If we had the map 2.0, we would never have seen this amazing formations. Sometimes upgrades aren't all they are cracked up to be. - Cathy)



Ironically, Eric and I just saw the movie Cars by Pixar. Great movie. The setting for it seems to be modeled after Sedona and Williams Arizona where we were headed. It was a neat parallel.

Communion weekend without all that crazy color

Great party Lizzy. Boy does that deck set up for a nice back drop.

Here's a couple of my black and whites.

It is truly an honor to be associated with such pretty people....and good work with the camera Eric. Thanks much.

Jimmy