Grand Canyon

Wednesday, August 17

From our campsite, it was about 40 miles to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Today was the day that we decided to visit the Grand Canyon. We started out with a slow morning and hit the road for the canyon around 10:30.

On our way through the park, we saw 2 huge packs of bison! There were about 30 in the first group and 50+ in the second. We pulled over and watched each group for a while, those creatures are massive. At one point a few got up and threw themselves at the ground to kick up dust. We weren’t really sure why, but a bunch seemed to be doing it. When we got there, our first stop was the visitors center so we could stamp our passports and I could buy my postcard.

No zoom necessary, they were that close.

There is no way I'm climbing that thing. (As Evan dangles his feet.)

From there we went on a short hike to the rim of one part of the canyon. Evan climbed every rock he saw, and I think I took about 10 pictures of every rock I saw. I ended up climbing two of them with him, that was more than enough for me.

This canyon was huge. I don’t have any more words for it. It was beautiful and incredible and just wow.

By the time we had gotten to the point of the rim a big thunderstorm had built up on the other side of the canyon, so we decided to head on back to the visitors center. We thought that we had a scheduled mule ride at 5:30, so we went ahead and got lunch at the dining room at the head of the trail and took our time there.

While we were eating Papa said, “I’m thinking about the blog and I don’t know what words we could use to describe the canyon.”

I said, “massive.”

Mimi said, “spectacular.”

I came back and said “It really is indescribable.”

Then Papa looked at Evan to see what he had to say… Evan said “big.”

When we went back to the visitors center to see where we were supposed to meet for our trail ride, they told us our tour was actually at 7:30 that morning, and that we had missed it. Luckily, they had 4 people for tomorrow’s tour cancel, so they booked us for that one. (This means us leaving the campsite with a packed up RV around 6:45 tomorrow morning.)

Once we heard that, we decided we’d check out an overlook and head home. On our way to the overlook, a huge thunderstorm actually came down and dumped rain on us, at one point there was even some hail! At that point we decided to turn around and head back home. Of course we stopped and watched the buffalo on the way out, because they hadn’t moved much while we were in the park.

Once we got back to the campsite, we hung up our enos to nap and read before heading in to make some of Mimi’s famous pancakes. They were delicious.

Now we have to get to bed because it’s going to be a very early morning tomorrow.

Thursday, August 18

Today has been a long day. But not a bad long day, just a long one.

Last night we agreed that we would wake up at 5:30 to pack up the RV and drive to the Grand Canyon. Well. We definitely didn’t get the whole 5:30 thing right. At the very dark hour of 5:07 Papa marched into the room saying “Kiddiepoos it’s time to get up!” Enough to say that Evan and I were not amused. By 5:15 we were all out of bed and fixing breakfast before cleaning up the inside of the RV (we had to wait for the sun to rise to fix the outside.)

By 6:30 we had parked the RV in an open area of the campsite and were on the road to the Grand Canyon. Once we were in the park we were stopped by a herd of bison crossing the street, not even 5 feet in front of us. We thought there were at least 70 of them out beside the road this morning.

Once we checked in for the mule ride we all hopped on our mules and got ready to hit the trail. Mimi was on Leslie, Papa was on Marty, Evan was on Bill and I was on Smurf. The trail ride was supposed to be around 3 hours but it ended up being 4, Mimi was thrilled. I think Mimi had the best time of all of us, she hasn’t stopped talking about it all day!

Mimi loves to ride the mules

On the switchbacks of the trail, you could look up or down on your fellow riders.  It was really steep.

And the views were fantastic!

Papa trods along slowly behind.

I guess we could call this our 50th wedding anniversary photo!

We've had an incredible three weeks~

We turned around at this tunnel and trudged back up the canyon.  The tunnel is at about the half way point to the bottom of the canyon.

We rode the mules about halfway down the canyon through about 100 switchbacks. At the rest area, our cowboy Mark took everyone’s pictures before heading back up the canyon. The view was gorgeous the whole time, as long as you didn’t look at the mule in front of you. As Papa said, “You don’t want to be on the south end of a mule heading north.”

After the mule ride, we hopped in the car and drove back to the campsite to pick up the RV. From there we drove to Zion, well, Papa drove, the rest of us took a few cat naps.

At Zion we settled in, visited the visitors center and ended up driving around the park.  We were only out about 45 minutes but I took 50 pictures.

Now I’m here editing them and writing the blog before heading off to bed.

Monument Valley

Sunday, August 14

This morning around 3 am Mom and Dad had to head to the airport for a flight home to North Carolina. They left us last night and stayed in a hotel near the airport so they wouldn't wake us up when they had to leave.

They definitely made the most of their 23rd anniversary; they flew home, picked up Sophie, did some unpacking, had dinner and totally passed out. They had a long day.

We started our day around 7:30 and slowly got ready to hit the road. We started heading from Mesa Verde to Monument Valley, which is located in Navajo Nation. It was a long drive, so we split it up with a stop at Four Corners Monument. We took a few funny pictures and shopped around at the kiosks at the monument.

We're pulling for our state - Utah, New Mexico, Arizona or Colorado

We stopped at a Burger King that Chuck and Cheryl had told us about; the owner’s father was part of the Navajo code talkers in WW2, so he had converted the Burger King into a museum on the code talkers. It was a very interesting stop, I know I learned a lot!

A rather unusual look inside the Burger King - The Navajo Code Talkers from WWII

After another 2 hours on the road we finally got to Gouldings campsite… this one was huge, it had a restaurant, gas station, museum, gift shop and a bunch of other stuff in addition to the RV park.

A beautiful setting for our campsite for tonight.

After exploring the campsite we took the 2 hour drive around Monument Valley National Park. This is where a bunch of movies were filmed, several of the John Wayne western movies, Forest Gump, Back to the Future 3 and over 100 more.

The west and east mittens

When we got back to Gouldings we had supper at the camp restaurant and checked out the gift shop before watching the sunset and heading in for the night. We’ve been getting a lot more tired so our adventures are getting a little shorter.

A nice view for dinner

Monday, August 15

Today was supposed to be a big driving day to the Grand Canyon, but Papa found that we had an extra day planned, so he made reservations at another campsite near Lake Powell about 2 hours towards the Grand Canyon. Once we got settled, we headed to the pool to do some swimming before going to the tourist section of town to try and find something to do.

Papa was extra lucky and managed to score us a boat ride through one of the canyons in Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the United States. The ride was beautiful, a little windy, but a real treat. The only weird part was when we would be splashed with the water, it didn’t taste salty… definitely threw us off for a second! Our boat driver was really good at handling the boat, he did a 5 point turn inside the canyon because the boat was longer than the width of the canyon! It was crazy.

The largest houseboat I've ever seen

The Glen Canyon Bridge was built to help workers on the dam go from one side to the other while the dam was under construction.  It is over 700 feet above the Colorado River which flows beneath it.

Tuesday, August 16

Papa and I went back to the dam this morning to explore it more, it turned out that they were giving tours of it, so we signed up and spent about 45 minutes on top of the dam. I learned a  lot and Papa got a ton of super cool pictures of the dam.

Anna and Papa took a tour of the Glen Canyon Dam.  We were the only people on the early morning tour and we received an excellent tour.

Lake Powell is the second largest reservoir in the US.

When we got back from the lake, we went to the Dam (which was HUGE) and ended up at a nearby Denny’s for supper.

Once we got back to the RV and packed it up we decided to make a stop at horseshoe bend, a landmark of Page. The hike was long and that day there was “extreme heat” so Evan and I did the hike ourselves. It was beautiful but oh my gosh it was hot, we were walking in sand for what felt like forever. After all, it was the desert!

These two pictures provide some perspective on how vast the canyon is.  The boats are floating on the river below and you can hardly see them in the photo below.

After driving for about 2 hours, Papa pulled over at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. We hadn’t ever heard of it, but it was a national area inside of the Navajo Nation. This canyon was huge, as we were pulling up to it, we guessed that it may have been part of the Grand Canyon… it wasn’t. We walked out on a bridge over the Colorado River… they didn’t have any signs to tell us, but it was beautiful. We saw 2 condors under the bridge as well as a few rafters.

Today’s destination was somewhere right on the border of Arizona and Utah, I don’t know exactly where but we’re around 40 minutes away from the Grand Canyon.

We decided to have a chill day instead of going straight to the canyon, so we set up our enos and just hung out for a while. A few hours later some neighbors pulled into the lot beside us. It was a Dad and his 2 kids on an RVing trip all the way from Canada. His daughter, George is 13 and his son Warren was 11.

Evan and I played with them all afternoon, we walked to the horses, shared funny stories, played soccer, volleyball and compared Canada to America. We got to know them really well, and they stayed in our RV with us until around 10 when we decided to call it a night.

Durango, Colorado/Mesa Verde National Park

Friday, August 12

Papa drove the RV from Silverton to Durango by his self as the rest of us rode the train.  On the way, Papa saw this Rocky Mountain Big Horned Sheep at an overlook.  He stopped to take pictures and the sheep bounded up the rock ledge on the side of the road.

Now today was a really really good day. We started it out at 1:30 this morning to watch the Perseid meteor shower (it’s one of the biggest in years.) It was all of 51 degrees with a ton of wind, but it was gorgeous. We saw so many shooting stars… it was unreal. We tried to get pictures, but there were too many lights in the park, so it didn’t turn out.

Around 2:45 we headed in and went to bed- for real this time. We were all up at 8:45 this morning (Papa was nice enough to let us sleep in.)

Once we were all up and ready for the day, we went downtown to go shopping… I found a real pair of cowboy boots that I absolutely love, I think we’re going back to get them tomorrow! Update: I got them :)

We came back to the RV for lunch and to change into bathing suits for rafting! Around 1:45 we made our way downtown to catch the bus to the Animas River with our rafting tour. Our guide Koby, was just out of college and had been a rafting tour guide for 3 summers, so she really knew what she was doing. Most of the ride was pretty chill, we would hit a few rapids, and then there was this calm area where we were allowed to jump in. Long story short, I may have squirted Dad so he tried to push me in, so when he dunked me, I grabbed his life jacket and pulled him in with me.

Now let me tell you. The water here is cold. I don’t know the exact temperature, but it was cold. Once we all finally got back in the raft, we hit some real rapids. These things were the kind that sprayed water up your nose at a force that I didn’t know water had. It was AWESOME.

After 2 hours of rafting, they dropped us back off downtown and we headed home to change back into normal clothes, this time warmer, because we were headed to the Bar D Chuck wagon show with Chuck and Cheryl.

We got to the grounds around 7 and explored the shops and playgrounds there before finding our table and getting ready for dinner. They started serving at 7:30, and our table was dead last. All 500 people were served before us, but we got our food around 7:55 so they were pretty efficient. For dinner we had beef, biscuits, applesauce, beans, spice cake, baked potatoes and other things that I can’t remember. It was delicious.

Once the show started. Now that was something else. So much music today is technology playing sounds and singers being auto tuned, but this was real talent. These five guys were outstanding. With guitars, a fiddle, and a thing that we think might be a cello (don’t take my word for it.)

They played for a little under an hour, and I was sad to see them go. Chuck got us front row seats so we could see them and they could see us. I cheered a lot at the beginning and more throughout the show so I was referred to as ‘Carolina’ (they did a state's roll call.)

The show was so good. 10/10 would recommend. We even got their CD. It was that good. Definitely a highlight of the trip so far!

Tonight we’re turning in early, first night of no stargazing since Moab, but I think last night kinda counted since it was technically this morning.

Saturday, August 13

Today was Mom and Dad’s last day with us… very bittersweet; bitter because duh, they’re leaving, sweet because Evan and I get out beds back tonight!!! No more cold floors!

We spent the day with Chuck and Cheryl touring Mesa Verde (because they’re experts and know all the cool stuff to do.) Papa, Mom, Dad, Evan and I met them at 8:15 to head to the park all in one car. After a 45 minute drive to Mesa Verde we headed into the visitors center to stamp our books, check out the scenery area and buy postcards.

Chuck gives us an overview of the park

After the visitors center we had another 45 minute drive just to get to the other side of the park. We made it more bearable by stopping at all the secret overlooks that only Chuck and Cheryl know. We were able to see Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado (duh) and Utah all from one overlook! It was awesome.

Our first tour was at 11 of Cliff Palace. This one was super informative, we learned a lot about how these Puebloan people lived. We got to see a Kiva (yes we made the connection to Snow Mountain Ranch) and hear Ranger Jan’s interpretation of the pueblo creation story.

Cliff Palace

I can climb this ladder

After that tour we had lunch at the Museum, everyone got their own food and then we watched a video on the history of the people that lived there.

From there we took a tour of Balcony House. This tour was more on the fun side, it focused on experiences in the ruins. On this tour our ranger set up a fun role play between 2 kids explaining what they would do if they lived in that time period. We also got to climb 6 ladders, one being 32 feet and the rest being 15 or so. The last part of the tour and the only exit was a tunnel only wide enough for your shoulders. We all had to crawl through, definitely not an easy feat, but a lot of fun.

Some of the tunnels were very small and we had to get on our hands and knees to crawl through them.

Yes, I can do this!!

Another tunnel, but we could stoop and walk through this one

We ended the day having dinner with everyone at Serious Texas BBQ and listening to some live music. It was an awesome way to wrap up another week here!