Flagstaff and that grandiose hole the in the ground

So, my dad said "get a GPS, you'll get lost less."  What he meant was, "get a GPS, you'll get lost less often, but when you do, it'll be much more creative because you will have placed your trust in technology and God still wants you to know that he understands the earth a bit better (as do cartographers) than a bunch of cans of aluminum orbiting the earth and shooting down signal to a stupid little box on your dashboard."  

I was more than a little annoyed with this little Nuvi.  After a beautiful drive through the desert (yes, even I will admit that the desert can be beautiful), we remembered that the Cook's had warned us that they lived off the beaten path.  With this in mind, we didn't question when our Garmin Nuvi picked a dirt road for us to turn onto.  We trusted it and soon (as in several miles later) found ourselves on an unkempt road through a farmer's ranch.  Nathan (the driver this day) had the tenacity of a bulldog and kept driving onward.  While there was as yet no risk to the car other than dirt, we were turned back when we noticed it was private property protected by barbed wire laid across the road.  In Arizona, they mean business.  Taken severely off course and ready to crush the Garmin under the weight of our car (and ire), we called Mr. Cook who met us at a gas station and adroitly guided us home without a blink of an eye.  As it turned out, the Cook family did not live in the middle of nowhere; rather, it was a nestled valley up above Flagstaff in the beautiful forests that many people forget Arizona has.  That night, Greenlaw Baptists Church hosted our concert and were very receptive and generous.  It was a beautiful space to sing in and they admitted that hearing the Latin music was a rare treat for them.  The Cook's, as with all the large families we have stayed with on this trip, were adept hosts.  It was as if adding four guys to a big family isn't really adding much to the burden as adding to the joy, noise, and conversation.  The kids were fun to get to know and the parents kept us entertained with information about the area and their roots in Flagstaff.

After spending the night in Tim and Josh's room (which seemed to lack their presence), we awoke the next morning to delicious breakfast and headed off for our first National Park... the Grand Canyon!  We entered the South Rim and drove all the way across, stopping at the particularly breath-taking parts.  I hadn't been to the Grand Canyon since I was much younger, and Nathan and Keaton had never been at all.  It was worth the National Parks Pass that we bought to get in.  We will use the same pass to get into Yosemite, Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Mount Rushmore.  It will pay for itself.  :)  After the Grand Canyon, we had quite a bit of Western Desert left ahead of us until we arrived in Vegas that evening at another of Nathan's uncles.