We also went to the Old Lahaina Luau which is one of the best traditional Luaus. It’s a little pricey, but worth it!

~Saundra

The trip from the airport was about 45 mins. Napilli Village is very quiet and just beautiful, so green and lush. It rains every night through the morning, then sunshine during the day. the weather is always perfect. It’s more of an adults area, because we really didn’t see any other teenagers there other then our daughters.

That evening we ate at The Sea House, it’s right on Napilli Bay, beautiful place…however..we really did not enjoy the food. It was a sad disappointment.

But we did get some nice pics just before the sun when down.

~Saundra

Day 1: We went to Oak Creek, played in the water a lil and then we hiked a trail along side Oak Creek.  along the way we found some piles of rocks, this was actually our first time seeing something like that.  The rock pile is called a “cairn”, it’s used to mark a trail path or a place of significance.

We ended up at the backside of Cathedral Rock.  At the time I had not idea where we were, but that twisted Juniper tree I snapped a picture of kind of tipped me off.  I saw it an thought to myself, hurm, doesn’t that occur when a vortex is near by?…

It was quite beautiful up there.

Day 2: Went to the front side of Cathedral Rock and hiked up, the views were breathtaking! It’s a really steep hike and a bit intimidating, but there are actually foot holes so it was doable. Cathedral Rock is actually one of Sedona’s famous vortexes, it’s said to have a femine energy. The energy at this vortex strengthens the things you normally think of as feminine, such as kindness, compassion, patience, and the ability to let others need you and depend on you. It also, strengthens the ability to anticipate the impact of your actions before you act, which is what considerateness is all about.

~Saundra

We hiked up Bell Rock and played in the water at Oak Creek.  Except for Genevieve she doesn’t really like hiking….and she doesn’t really like people.. hurm…but she really enjoyed her new phone.  haha

At Oak Creek there are several areas to camp for the day.  You can go into the first area where we were, or walk further east along the trail.  You can find a nice spot to rest and not feel crouded, although the parking lot gets packed quickly.  If you just wait in line, they will let you in once a car comes out from the lot.  It’s aprox $9.00 per car, but you could park down the street and walk there, its a little less to enter.  I personally prefer to drive in.

At Bell Rock, there are two parking lots, the one we parked at is probably a mile walk from Bell Rock.  It is a nice walk, if you enjoy walking and nature.  There is a closer parking lot that is a hop skip and a jump away from Bell Rock.  I can’t find the names on google, but if you want to skip the long walk, look for the parking lot just north of Bell rock on the East side of highway 179.

Enjoy!

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Most people come to Fossil Creek to sunbathe, wade, hike and camp. It’s also a great place to take photographs, I’m sure you will agree. I hear there are javelina there too, but I didn’t see any. Maybe that was a good thing!
Here are some interesting details about Fossil Creek:

Fossil Creek is fed by springs coming from the cliffs of the Mogollon Rim. Over 30 million gallons of water are discharged each day at a constant 70 °F.

The high mineral content leaves travertine dams and deposits, giving rise to fossil-like features. In 2005, Arizona Public Service (APS) decommissioned the Fossil Creek Dam and Flume, restoring full flows to Fossil Creek. Fossil Creek is a rare riparian area within an otherwise arid landscape. Many plants and wildlife depend on Fossil Creek for habitat, including otters, beavers, leopard frogs, and common black hawks.

Fossil Creek has a number of Dilzhé’é (Western Apache) cultural sites. The Dilzhé’é lived along Fossil Creek for generations and several families consider this to be their homeland.

Interesting stuff.  =)  Hope you enjoy the video!

The water comes up from a nature spring, you’ll see in the video where I found the spring.  1 million gallons of water come from this spring an hour.  The water was a little cold where we were but i’m sure it feel great when the sun is hitting directly down at you.  At Fossil Creek further down the road the water is a nice 72 degrees year round.

Not many poeple know about Fossil Creek, it’s one of Arizona’s hidden gems.  I’m glad I had the chance to see it and share it with you.

I’m not going to lie, that hike was not easy.  Going down is not so bad, it takes about 1.5 hours, but going backup takes about 2-3 hours.  It was pretty steep in about 3 spots, but other then that it’s a constant slight incline.   We were pretty prepared for our hike.  I recommend a couple bottles of water & some Gatorade for going down.  Have something extra to drink while you are there and have another 2 bottles of water going up.  We saw so many people coming up struggling because they were tired and dehydrated.

Oh a few more things I recommend that I noticed a lot of people didn’t bother with is sun block, bug repellent and a hat.  Sure wish I had a hat during that hike!

Some of the things we took:

Small cooler with baggies of ice for our water, bug spray, towels, bug spray, protein bars, snack bars, beef jerky, other munchies, bug spray, wet ones, Ibuprofen, band-aids, bug  spray, flashlight and my camera of course!

I hope you enjoyed the video!

I’ll be making a trip to Fossil Creek in a couple of weeks so be sure to check back!

We stayed at the Greer Lodge Resort & Cabins, where you can rent large cabins near The Little Colorado River.   The best thing about Greer Lodge is that all the amenities are included in the price. Some of the free activities include biking, kayaking, fly fishing, bird watching, sledding, and snow tubing. You can check out board games and movies free too!

The wildlife is abundant in Greer, Greer actually has the largest population of Elk in the nation.  You can also spot Deer, Bald Ealges, Foxes, Coyotes, Raccoons, Horned Owls, Osprey Hawks, and even Wild Turkeys.

Visiting Greer is now a family tradition for us, we are actually planning to go back this September.

If you are looking to escape the heat, Greer is the best place in Arizona to visit!

A little history on the temple:

The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon, also known as Guan Yin, Kuan Yin or the Goddess of Mercy. According to legend, a statue of the Kannon was found in the Sumida River in 628 by two fishermen, the brothers Hinokuma Hamanari and Hinokuma Takenari. The chief of their village, Hajino Nakamoto, recognized the sanctity of the statue and enshrined it by remodeling his own house into a small temple in Asakusa, so that the villagers could worship the Kannon.
The first temple was built on the site in 645, which makes it the oldest temple in Tokyo. In the early years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu designated Sensō-ji as tutelary temple of the Tokugawa clan.

It was a really nice day and very busy at the temple grounds.  The entire shopping street leading to the temple is filled with giftshops and food shops.  Every 10 feet you get this yummy aroma of something tasty cooking, steaming, or baking.  We couldn’t help but sample a few!   The lil cakes with the pumpkin and bean paste filling is called deep fried manju (soft cake with red bean paste filling).  Very tasty we had to go back for more. The white dumpling was steamed with meat and veggies inside, it was a lil sweet but good.  We tried senbai, which are rice crackers flavored with soy sauce or seaweed.  Some are sweet, spicy or salty, they’re kind of addicting actually.

After squeezing our way through the busy streets to the temple we went inside to look around, it’s really hard to get a look inside as you can see from the video, there was a gate blocking the view and losts of people.  We didn’t stay inside too long, there was a lot of people waiting to get in to toss their coins and make wishes.  We visited the garden area and various nearby shrines.  It was so beautiful and meticulously maintained.

After lots of sight seeing, munching and shopping we headed over to Ueno park to see the Cherry Blossoms.  There were so many people there having picnics.  People of all ages, families, schools kids and friends all came to enough cherry blossom viewing.  I was amazed at the amount of food people brought, everything looked so good. I just wanted to go sit with some people and join in on the picnic!  Next time, I will be prepared with my own lil picnic.

The sun was setting, so it was off to dinner for us.  We went to try Yakitori.  yum.  I’ll post a lil something about that soon.

Inside the museum were several old fashion movie reels playing clips of some of the Ghibli anime.  There were several different carousels with figurines, each with a slight movement.  When the carousel turns on they all appear to be moving.  It was very cute.  A few differant rooms with movies, figurines, and boxes with movie scenes made of paper.  There was a long hall with posters from the movies.  The biggest attraction was the CAT BUS! I loved the cat bus I wanted to go jump on it too!  I think I was too big for the cat bus.  =(

In the center on the 2nd floor was the gift shop and man it was like black Friday in there! Minus the anger. haha!  I spent probably too much in the gift shop, but come on it was the Ghibli Studio Museum in Japan!  I had to live in the moment.

We had hot dogs for lunch.  The dog was more like a polish sausage and the bun was freshly baked.  I love that about Japan, if there is bread being served, it’s always freshly baked.  There was no mustard or ketchup, just relish.  I hate relish, but I tried it, and well Japanese relish is pretty good!  We also had ice cream for dessert, couldn’t pass that up!

After lunch we went to Inokashia Park next to the museum.  The Cherry Blossoms were just beginning to bloom. It was still so pretty.  You can’t really tell from the photos, but there were mostly women and children at the park.  A large portion of wives are stay at home moms while the husband works all day.   You might also notice there were dozens of bikes parked in there.  That’s very common in Japan. Bike bike bikes, everywhere.  I like the idea though, it’s a great way to stay fit.  =)

Afterward we went back to the hotel to rest for a while before heading out to dinner. Mom was out like a light, I had to wake her up and drag her out to dinner!  We went to a Tempura restaurant near our hotel at the Caretta Center.  It was so good, but then again, any food in Japan is good.

If you notice in the video there is tempura fish?  Well…it was not originally going to be a fish.  It was EEL!  The chef came over and showed my mom what they were going to cook for us and if it was ok.  haha! My mom was startled to see a whole eel in the basket!  It was funny, she was shaking her head saying uh uuuh.  So our waitress was nice enough to suggest Whiting, a common fish served in Japan.   We had some wine and chatted with the waitress in Japanglish, it was a very good day with my mom.

These are moments we will both cherish.  Love you mom!