Day 5: Painted Desert and Petrified Forrest
Hey hey hey!! We’re back to tell you about our amazing day, full of driving, laughter, and our 2nd, 3rd and 4th National Parks of the trip!! We started our day with another 5:15 "Wakey Wakey" from Dallas. We left from a chilly, windy, and wet night in New Mexico at the New Mexico Military Institute and started our trek to Arizona. Our first stretch of the day was a three hour drive. Many of us chose to take a nap since we are still adjusting to the early mornings!
Dexter making sure we leave our campsite better than we found it
We had a 5-star yogurt parfait with granola and an apple and oranges…Our head of Dopeys, Caleb really munched down on the granola. Our first stop of the day was at a Flying J. We are really starting to love these gas stations stops. Many people were excited to buy a Cinnabon! We loaded up the vehicles and made our way to the Petrified Forest, another National Park! We unloaded the bus quickly took a group photo in front of the sign. Grant let us know that it was good luck to kiss the petrified wood. So we all did this before loading back up, be we want nothing but good luck on TWB!
 |
We then got to take in the amazing views of the Painted Desert! We were blown away by the sights that was saw at the Vista Point! We had a few people share research to learn more about the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.
 |
| Olivia Owens giving her research on the Painted Desert |
 |
| Emma Palmer giving research on the Petrified Forest |
 |
Caleb telling us about Schriner University (just imagine you’re there, sometimes we get behind on research) |
We loaded back up into the vehicles and headed to Wal-mart! Our favorite! We had our biggest cooking run yet with the most meals to buy for. A lot of people were buying things to prep for our big hikes tomorrow morning. We loaded the vehicles one more time and made our way to the Grand Canyon! On the way to the Grand Canyon, we had a traveling dinner. We had a super awesome meal of chicken bacon ranch wrap with a side of carrots, and fudge striped cookies for dessert. Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time absoltutey took our breath away and even brought some of us to tears.
We then made our way to our campsite to learn more about where we will be sleeping for the next two nights. After a quick meeting, we celebrated the birthday boy Hollister with a singing celebration and giving him his card and gift. The Big 18!!! It was then time to unpack our sleeping stuff. Then we walked as a group over to Mather Point to enjoy one of the most amazing sunsets we have ever seen. More tears were shed, not just from the amazing sights but about the friendships we are already forming!
The Dopeys are signing off tonight to get some much needed rest before our early morning rise.
See you soon! - Reece, Andrew, Grace, Davis, Scott, Addison, Bayla, Olivia, Hannah, Aiden, Lily, Bryant, Liz, Rylei, and our Birthday boy, Hollister.
