Joy In The Journey: Havasupai!

This last weekend I had the privilege of going with my dad and Tori and Sophi to Havasupai. Havasupai is an Indian Village (Indian Reservation) at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We went along with Bingham's, Larry and Diana and Casey and Carly and Mark and Shelly Reeve. We left Wednesday and stayed in Peach Springs for one night, a small town that is off route 66 and was inspiration for the town Radiator Springs in the Pixar movie Cars. We hiked down the canyon and into the village on Thursday and after getting settled in our room in the lodge we got our bathing suits on and hiked to the first waterfall. Beautiful!!! The water is a turquoise color. The Indian word Supai means "the people of the blue green waters" and it is so true. The color of the water is breathtaking. We found a water hole to swim in and Sophi and I decided to go down some tiny rapids. They were tiny with huge damage. I went down feet first how I've been taught and my upper left thigh and lower right leg got majorly scraped up. I stopped myself on this big rock and climbed up and then I was stuck. Then came Shelly, and I was freaking out because I knew she was going to hit all the same rocks that I hit. She did get a little scraped but not as badly as me. Then Tori was on the bank and she asked "okay how do I get down there" and I said "no, you do not want to come through these rapids, I'm stuck can you help me out?" She reached for me from the bank and helped me out. THANK HEAVENS! I asked the girls, Didn't you here me screaming as I was getting scraped by rocks? and they said yes we thought they were screams of joy! :) Friday we hiked to the other two waterfalls past the first and again they just took my breath away. My dad was a great photographer as usual, he takes pictures of everything. :) Thursday and Friday night Dad, Tori, Sophi and I played several grueling games of hand and foot. Saturday we hiked out in the morning and drove home. The village was so interesting, dirt everywhere with horse poop everywhere too. No cars, just horses for transportation and we saw one tractor and a helicopter that would make trip after trip getting supplies to them. We saw him bring several trips of hay for the horses. There is 1 diner to eat at and the food was extremely average, good fry bread though, everyone liked the fry bread. There was a tiny grocery store with Wheaties that cost $10. There was an elementary school, for high school the kids have to go out of the canyon for the 4 years. A great trip, a great experience, so happy to be a part of it, loved being a part nature and enjoyed every minute of this beautiful world God created for us!!! Thanks Dad and Tori!

And so it begins...our adventure!

The hike down we stopped every 5 minutes to take pictures, so beautiful!

These mules carried our bags and others down to the village for us, good horsies!

This is the lodge we stayed in, it was a good home to us for 2 nights.

The famous and very necessary helicopter...

The first falls we hiked to on Thursday... (me, Carly, Sophi, Dad, Tori and Mark)

The roaring rapids :)

Waterfall #2 (I'm terrible I only remember 1 waterfalls name)

This took our breath away, Sophi kept saying "you've GOT to be kidding me!" Waterfall #3
This was Friday, we continued on to Mooney Falls and then came back here and went swimming, we (Shellie, Sophi, and Casey and I) swam behind the waterfall :O so scary, so exilarating, so glad I did it, what an experience!!

(me, Sophi, Dad, Tori, Shellie, Mark, Diana, Casey and Carly) (Larry was behind his awesome camera that was in a waterproof case)

Okay I know the name of this one...Mooney Falls...TERRIFYING :)

You had to crawl through caves...

and hang onto chains to get to the base of this waterfall! Made me a little nervous...

so happy when I reached the bottom! :)

This is a great story...Sophi and I went in the store to get some Powerade for our hike out. The girl behind the cash register had some great earrings on and we saw her with different ones on the day before, so cute! Sophi and I leave and discuss if we should ask her if we can buy her earrings, we decide YES! We go back inside the store and Sophi says "can I buy your earrings?" She grabs her ears and says, "I don't know" with a huge smile on her face. She takes them out and says "okay". Sophi gives her $20. Sophi bought Indian earrings right out of the ears of an Indian. :) I ask her if she makes them and if she has more, she does make them and she had more at her house. I asked her if she could take us there and I would buy a pair too. She did, she took us to her house, walked along the dirt road and under some barbed wire and she brought out about 4 pairs of earrings, Tori and I both bought a pair and I told her that next time I came down I want to see her earrings for sale in the store, she smiled. Her name is Alta but people call her Donna, she has 4 kids.