Day 8: ER in AZ

Well, we did no traveling today, but it was an eventful day none the less!

This morning started out with sitting in the ER for Scott's split lip. Can I just say, ER rooms are not very efficient.
Bear was of course acting up as usual, and he head butted Scott in the chin, driving his upper tooth into his lower lip bed. It started bleeding and looked pretty nasty. So we ended up at the ER at the Flagstaff Medical Center waiting around for 2 hours, for them to treat him for a human bite. They gave him a tetanus shot, and told us that they can not stitch wounds that are inside the mouth or on the lips - it will cause an abscess that will immediately get infected. So now we know, don't waste time going to the ER unless you have a wound outside of your mouth. But it does look pretty nasty (swollen and purple along his lip), and I am glad that we went for them to take a look at. At least no one thought that his new wife was beating him up - but Scott thinks that makes a better story... They told Scott to avoid solid food for a couple of days and sent us on our way.

We then went to eat lunch in downtown Flagstaff at a restaurant called Monsoon's. It was kind of like a Thai/sushi place with a modern flair. Of course, Scott didn't stick to liquids as he was told, and then ended up splitting his lip again on a chopstick as we were eating. But we enjoyed our meal of unusual sushi, soup, spring rolls and salad and started making our way to the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon was amazing. I have never seen anything like it - and all the way there I kept looking for a mountain or something that indicated that we were getting close. I just figured that in order to go way down into the ground, we had to drive way up onto a mountain first. But we came upon it, and I think it's neat how you don't even really see it through the trees until you are coming on to the edge. For some reason, I also thought it was going to be a huge hole in the ground, not a winding gorge. Maybe I was thinking of something else entirely, but I thought it would be round and look like a huge crater where a meteor struck. I pictured us on the rim of the round hole, with a metal railing separating us from the deep fall into the middle of the hole. Isn't the Grand Canyon what they were driving to in the movie "Starman"? And didn't that alien ship come up and take him away from the hole in the ground? Maybe I was too little when it came out to really remember the details.

We did some light hiking, drove part of the Desert View Drive, and stopped to look at the Market area. I would really like to come back and actually camp at the ground and spend all day hiking. I wanted to take one of those steeper trails that take you down into the canyon - but we didn't really have time. Next time - good thing we got one of the National Park Passes that are good all year.

We are now back at the room relaxing and spending time with our stupid dog. We were so mad at him this morning, that we just left him in his crate all day at the hotel room, and didn't come back until about 8pm. He's actually behaving for the most part right now. One day, maybe he'll grow up.

We want to make an early start tomorrow, and try to hit Sedona and Jerome if we have some time. We then are on the last leg to Oceanside, and we will see our new house for the first time. So exciting!!

BTW - thanks to everyone who is reading this and posting comments. The Erie frog question is finally answered!! Thanks!