The original plan was to go to Sedona to bike and hike. My parents came from UT to watch the kids and we hit the road. Saturday morning we discovered what was causing the bumpy, rattling ride: the Finnish snow tires, designed for cold climates, had separated. When we left the hotel and headed to the van I noticed that the passenger-side rear tire was low. A nearby tire shop pulled the tire and showed us the giant hole that was forming. We had worn thru nearly all the layers in one 6-8 inch section of the tire. Since I had trouble finding the weird tire size in the past I figured we were spending the weekend in Bullhead City, AZ. Amazingly they had two of the tires we needed in stock, so with 5 guys working on the van we were out of there in 20 minutes. We drove I-40 thru Kingman and Flagstaff. Just before Flagstaff we ran into some pretty heavy snow. The snow continued was we drove down 89A to Sedona. By the time we got to Sedona it was raining, but VERY cold and low clouds were obscuring the view of the red rock hills. We decided to keep going south to Scottsdale and see what Hotwire could come up with for us. Got a $500/ night room in a 5-star luxury resort for $117/ night. It was a beautiful property: Intercontinental Montelucia. Pappadeaux, one of my top 5 restaurants in the world was booked Saturday night, so we went there for lunch on Sunday. Had filet mignon and it was amazing. Sunday night we watched the US vs Canada hockey game. First time that the US has beaten Canada since the 1960 olympics at Squaw Valley!! Awesome! We headed back home Monday.