So, on Friday June 11th, we had what turned out to be our last shower for a while. We took down the trailer and left our RV Park at Lake Mead, without feeling too sad to leave the place! Our drive to the Grand Canyon was uneventful. We got there and set up camp in the Mather campground right there in Grand Canyon Village. We headed off to the Visitor's Center to check out what activities were available. When we got back to our campsite, who do you think had arriven? Our friends from San Jose; Derek's best friend Eric and his dad Craig. They had arranged their schedules so that they could spend a week with us on our journey. We had a lovely dinner with them, and said goodbye to Craig as he went off on his merry way to get sunset photos of the canyon. The next day was our hike partway into the canyon. Usually it is VERY hot for this particular hike in June, but the high on Saturday was to be 59 degrees with thundershowers. We bundled up and set of for our adventure down over the rim. We hiked a mile and a half straight down. The elevation change was 1500 feet in that mile and a half. We saw lots of flowers and the views of the canyon were breathtaking. We stopped for our picnic lunch out on a ledge with panoramic views of the canyon and watched the lightening strikes get closer and closer as the clouds got blacker and blacker. We were feeling energetic enough to go on, but with the storm coming and knowing it was straight up all the way back, we decided to head back up. WOW, was that up!!! After the first 10 steps we were all huffing and puffing and ready for a break. We had some sprinkles of rain and let me tell you they were darn cold (though not dam cold ha, get it?!) We made it to the top and to the visitor's center just in time for a major downpour with hail and everything. We felt so lucky NOT to be included in the group of hikers stuck in that! When we got back to the trailer, we noticed little bits of Styrofoam, and food containers all over our campsite. Craig had left his 2 dollar Styrofoam cooler with all their food outside the trailer. The Ravens found it. Those things pecked the cooler into lotsa tiny pieces and managed to get into the food containers, even poking holes in the milk jug. From that moment on, Ravens were the enemy. It was so wet and cold that we decided to go just outside the park to the IMAX theater to watch the Grand Canyon movie. Can I just say, we were not the only ones with THAT idea. The place was a zoo. After you bought your tickets, you had to go through the gift shop to get into the theater. You couldn't move! I lost Colin for about 5 minutes, and was just starting to panic when I found him. After that we went out to pizza and headed back to camp. The rain came and went but it was a chilly night. We stuck all three boys out in the tent. They stayed pretty cozy in there rain showers and all. I went to be frozen so we put on our HEATER!! Here we had been running the ac nonstop and now we were on to the heater! Unfortunately, we had it on pretty high, and us adults were all too lazy to get up and turn it down, so we were pretty hot all night.
Sunday we hiked part of the rim trail, which is paved and less strenuous. There was a fair amount of complaining going on about more hiking from one of the Smith boys! I think he was still a bit tired from the hike the day before. Eric, who claims to not like hiking did a pretty good job, toughing it out. There were so many wonderful vistas and sights to see!, that I think we all were glad to have done it, sore feet and all. Meanwhile, Craig had been getting up at about 4 each morning to get the sunrise photos of his dreams, and staying up late after going off to get sunset photos. He felt like he had scoured the Grand Canyon and since he was to have less time at Arches and Canyonlands, he decided to take off and head for Moab a day early. We still had Eric with us, and we spent the afternoon getting reorganized, trying to catch up on blogs, and paperwork, napping and general playing. That night Marcus and I had the trailer all to ourselves as the boys still wanted to sleep in the tent. That was an unexpected treat!
No comments:
Post a Comment