Grand Canyon

Since the all night drive to the Grand Canyon was quite tiring after snowboarding in Aspen, we decided to park in a Comfort Inn parking lot about 70 miles from the park. We fell fast asleep around 3am and awoke around 8am to finish our journey to the North Rim.  Upon arrival, we called up Jonathan’s Grandmama to alert her she was right on her “Forest Fire Weather Predictions” for Arizona. We had noticed many acres of forest that had been charred from the flames. No flames were present when we arrived though, thank God.

We spent the day setting up the campsite and venturing around the rim. I almost forgot the most important task we participated in that morning—SHOWERING. Kate did not want me to admit the last time we had showered, but let’s just say it had been awhilllleeee. Life has always been good, but after the shower, well, it was Amazing.

We set up the grand tent that Jonathan’s Mom had bought us. What a steal she made at a yard sale; $10 for a brand new Eddie Bauer Dome Tent. Way to go Mom! We went on a very short bike ride. As we came down the mountain at 25 mph, we quickly realized that we would have to peddle back up.  We decided not to descend the entire hill and instead turned around and trudged back to our campground.

As our campsite was literally 100 feet from the rim we thought taking a trip to actually see this huge landmark sounded like a good idea.  We dropped off our bikes and walked through the trees to the edge of the canyon. The sight of the Grand Canyon was beyond words. As we peered out into the vast and awesome sight, the world became that much bigger and we became that much smaller.

We lucked out on reserving another night’s stay at the park. Our first reservation had been made months in advanced with only one night available for the entire month of June. Oh I forgot to mention the temperatures! Hot, hot during the day. Cold, cold at night. 90 during the day. 35 during the night. Talk about extreme temperatures! We shivered through the night.

The next day we bummed around the campsite for the morning and then set out for a short hike into the canyon.  The Kaibob trail is the North Rim’s only trail that takes you all the way to the river at the bottom of the canyon, a distance of 14 miles.  All of the trail guides made it very clear that one should not attempt to go all the way to the bottom and back in one day!  As Kate had awoken that morning suffering from some sort of allergy (the Grand Canyon Plague as Jonathan termed it) she wasn’t up for the long hike we had anticipated making.  The short hike we did do was enjoyable and strenuous enough.  We finished the hike at the same time as another couple whom appeared much more fatigued than us.  We struck up a conversation with them and learned they had reason to appear so worn out.  Their hike had started at 3 am on the South Rim and they had been hiking for 15 hours to make it the North Rim.  WOW!  Though they had made it to the end of the trail, they still had another 2 miles to go before they reached the lodge where they would be sleeping.  Jonathan offered to drive them to the lodge and they quickly accepted the offer.  After dropping them off at the lodge Jonathan drove back to the trailhead to pick up our bikes that we left there.  After loading up the bikes he noticed 3 more very fatigued hikers coming off the trail.  Turns out they had just completed the same hike and were thrilled Jonathan offered to shuttle them to the lodge as well.  If med school doesn’t work out, a Grand Canyon shuttle service may be in the works for Jonathan.

That night we made an early dinner of beans, rice and a Chunky’s soup. Jonathan’s Dad bought us a magnificent camping stove that boiled the soup concoction in less than a minute! Nice buy Dad! It also was fabulous for oatmeal and coffee for the morning.  Just as our dinner started to boil a man from a neighboring campsite came over and asked if we would like to share in their leftover burgers and hotdogs.  How could we say no?  We followed him back to his campsite where we were greeted by 40 of his friends.  This group gets together once a year in the Canyon for a reunion.  These generous people fixed us 6 cheeseburgers and 2 hotdogs, coleslaw and a heaping serving of brownies, cookies and rice krispie treats.  We enjoyed a brief chat with them, even discovering that one couple had a daughter and son-in-law who were both in graduate school at UVA.  Small world even in a place as big as the Grand Canyon! (In addition the family tenting right next to us used to live in Blacksburg!)  We took a group picture, said goodbye to our 40 new friends and enjoyed a delicious dinner.

Last but not least, we sat on the North Rim as the sun set (or the Earth revolved). It was breathtaking to see the grandeur of the canyon, but the sunset was so-so. We both agreed that the sunset was better overlooking the Chesapeake Bay back in Mathews, VA or the Appalachian Mountains in Blacksburg, VA. We ended the night with a back-to-back Criminal Minds viewing in the Chrysler Minivan. 

Next Stop: Vegas!