Day 326 – Memorial Day

I read on the news feed today that 40% of American’s don’t know the true meaning of Memorial Day. I find that statistic hard to swallow so, I made a point of asking my kids what the day was about. My son jumped on the question and said, Memorial Day is a day to honor all the soldiers who have died fighting for our freedoms. I couldn’t have said it better myself and I really hope my two daughters heard him speak because they looked like the other 40% of the country when I asked the question.

As we travel I use every opportunity to educate my kids about life. When holidays pass we talk about them. Some are religious, some are historical and some are emotional but, we discuss all of them so that they know why we have “no school” that day. I truely hope that 40% of our country doesn’t let the day go by without taking in what the day was about.

Today we drove South to Sedona. We were planning to go to a place called Slide Rock which is a State Park with, what we found out is, one of the 10 best watering holes in the entire country. You literally slide down alge covered rocks into a huge swimming area on Oak Creek. Oak creek is a river that run straight through the canyon from Southern Flagstaff to Sedona. So, we basically followed the river all the way to Slide Rock State park.

Unfortunately, a lot of other people had the same idea as us and the park had reached 50% of capacity (coronavirus maximum) and stopped admitting people before we arrived.

We were a little bummed out but, we drove about 2 miles down the road and found a spot to park along Oak Creek where we could hike down the the creek and swim. We had a blast and the rocks were slippery. We took our time to avoid any unfortunate mishaps and made a great day of it. The creek was cold but, extremely refreshing.

After swimming we hopped back into our Jeep and drove into the city of Sedona, which was about 10 minutes further South.

The red rocks and incredible mountains in Sedona are breathtaking. We love that place and wanted to take it all in again. We bouced around town to see a few neighborhoods and then headed back North throught the canyons towards Falgstaff. The drive home was only 50 minutes but, its the most beautiful 50 minutes you can image. The road climbs over 3000 feet through switchbacks and curvy roads until you reach the top of the canyon and see the San Francisco peaks of Flagstaff welcoming you home.

Jenn and I talked about how much it took to get here and how fantastic it feels to finally be able to enjoy the life we created. We never imagined being in a place where we are able to take a day trip to Sedona. It was absolutely incredible.

I hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day as much as we did!