As mentioned yesterday Kim, my family, and I all met up in Phoenix last Wednesday to start celebrating my 30th birthday. After everyone had arrived at the airport, we found our rental car and started driving north toward our first destination, the Grand Canyon. Everyone was already pretty hungry, so we decided to stop in Cave Creek for lunch. One of my guide books suggested a place called The Original Crazy Ed’s Satisfied Frog Saloon & Restaurant in the tourist trap Frontier Town. We found Frontier Town without any problems, but couldn’t find the restaurant. Finally we realized that it had changed names and is now the Silver Spur Saloon. Fortunately they still had the same good bar-b-que that the book promised, which we washed down with our first tastes of Oak Creek Amber Ale.

After lunch we continued on our way north to the Grand Canyon. We didn’t make any other stops along the way, but it was very interesting to see the drastically changing scenery. Around the Phoenix area there were cacti everywhere, especially the Saguaro cactus. The further north we drove, the higher in elevation we gained, and the less cacti we saw. In fact, there are national forests surrounding much of the Phoenix area. As we approached the Grand Canyon we even started spotting patches of snow, along with evergreen trees. The route we took was I-17 to Flagstaff, I-40 west towards Williams, and then finally AZ-64 north.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon as the sun was beginning to set, which was our goal. We quickly found the Maswik Lodge, our home for the night, and then walked swiftly over to the Grand Canyon rim. The colors of the canyon walls were already beginning to glow, so after a few photos near the Bright Angel Trailhead, we walked west along the rim toward Hopi Point. As we reached Maricopa Point, a park shuttle bus was passing by, so we hopped on it and were quickly dropped at Hopi Point. The view from there was amazing, as you could see for many miles west into the canyon as the sun was setting.

After enjoying the sunset views we headed over to the El Tover Dining Room to sample the food of the best restaurant inside the Grand Canyon National Park as well as a nice bottle of wine.  I had the Garden Penne in Lemon Garlic White Wine Reduction with grilled chicken and it was delicious!  I couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate my birthday and to kick off my 30th birthday Edventure.  Some photos of our first day are below, and my mom has added her’s to her flickr site.

Cave Creek on Dwellable