Departure

It's been a month since my brother arrived here in Las Vegas for a vacation and visit. Although my brother's own family were not able to come with him because of his son's school commitments, it was still a memorable time for the family. The whole time that he stayed with us was so enriching with lots of stories and experiences being shared.
The highlight of his visit was attending the Maasin Fiesta celebrations in Northern California. We spent a total of 10 days for that trip. He was also able to spend time with my mom to celebrate her 80Th birthday. Going to the state of Arizona for two days added more adventure to his vacation here.
I was the one planning the road trips even before he arrived. I wanted his time here in the USA to be a memorable one, a huge contrast to the last time when he was here two years ago. We were able to visit a lot of beautiful places that one can only imagine upon reading travel books and magazines. I hope I successfully attained my goal of making his whole stay with us as memorable and enjoyable as can be.
As of this writing, my brother is already in-transit to the Philippines on board Philippine Airlines. Bon voyage my brother, we all miss you. Your room in our house suddenly becomes empty. I know my mom & dad were sad upon seeing him go but there were no tears because they can see that my brother have been enjoying his stay and that he was in his best condition health wise.

Revisiting Grand Canyon & Sedona

Earlier this week during my days off my family embarked on another road trip. This time, we went to the state of Arizona specifically the south rim of the Grand Canyon and Sedona. I've been to these places before but my parents and my brother wanted to see these places. Initially I planned to go to the west rim of the Grand Canyon just to experience the Skywalk, a fiberglass bridge overlooking the canyon but I have heard from some friends that they did not recommend this site; instead they suggested me to visit either the north rim or the south rim. We decided then to return to the south rim and I booked the same hotel where I stayed before.

Armed with a GPS, driving to the Grand Canyon was without problems. It took us about 5 hours to arrive to our hotel and it was still about 1pm. We had our late lunch and then we had our guided tour around the village and within the south rim of the canyon. The highlight of the tour was watching the sunset. It was a spectacular to see since the canyon walls changes colors with the setting sun. There was not much cloud cover that afternoon so it was clear to watch the sun hiding into the horizon.

The following day, we had our breakfast and then we embarked into our next destination, Sedona. As we were near the valley, we passed through a lot of winding roads with cliffs on the side but beyond this was the spectacular view of the red rock canyon with different colossal formations. We had our lunch and took pictures of the surrounding canyon valley. We ended up in the Holy Cross Chapel on top of a canyon rock, overlooking much of the city. Both my parents and my brother agreed that they liked Sedona more than the Grand Canyon mainly because of their personal perspective. In Grand Canyon, you will be impressed with how massive the whole area is and how deep the canyon below because we were actually on top of the canyon walls. In Sedona, aside from the different kind of rock formation, one can appreciate how high the canyon were and how huge the rock formations because we're actually at the bottom of the canyon walls.

Driving about 4 hours back to Las Vegas completed our road trip. I'm glad that my family particularly my brother enjoyed the trip. Next thing to do is to work with the pictures, post them online and have them printed for safekeeping. I'm planning to make a picture book to cover the whole time of my brother's visit here in America.