Flagstaff has been an amazing spot to visit!
Sunday, we arrived from the cross country trip, pretty zonked and spent the afternoon settling into our house with Mom’s recipe — Southwestern bean burritos for dinner.

Monday
After school and work on Monday, we left the house to hike a trail near Elden’s Peak. The trail is called Fatman’s loop and was our first chance to test our altitude acclimation — not too bad but definitely a change from sea level.

The landscape is so incredibly different – dry, dusty with many succulents and highly scrappy plants and trees that live seemingly in conflict with the resources available to them. 

The boys enjoyed making a video along the way, particularly when William found a king snake (red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black, okay jack!)

It was boys choice for dinner – sheet pan pizza – rawls loving the mushrooms.

Tuesday
William researched some spots and suggested Walnut Canyon. None of us knew what to expect and we were blown away by the canyon and cave dwellings that housed people in the 1200s.

On the way back in town, we drove through downtown Flagstaff, down San Francisco Ave and scouted a few places to visit for dinner. After cleaning up, we came back to Crillo Latin kitchen for dinner – loved our meal which was great for us and the boys: elote, jalapenos, smashed avocado for snacks and lamb birria tacos / largest southwestern wedge salad (ever) for dinner.

Wednesday
Another great stop – we visited Wupatki- an Adobe archaeolgical site dating back to 1100. The settlement at one point housed over a thousand people and the remains capture aspects of housing, food systems and social life.

Thursday

For our last day/evening in Flagstaff, we were able to host a hometown visitor — Andre Gruber. Nice to spend some time with him (And for William to have a music partner).