We awakened to a slow and sleepy morning. I enjoyed coffee and the last of an Agatha Christie novel (and a couple of blog entries, even though I won’t be able to upload them until later). The night got down to 55, but we are all toasty in our bags and glad not to have to deal with the fires of hell in the desert. After everyone got moving, we enjoyed a big breakfast of bacon and pancakes before gearing up for a hike along the rim trail, one of the few places in any National Park that we could take Skye-Boy along with us.
We hiked a mile from the trailer to get to the rim trail and then another seven miles along the trail to Hopi Point and back to the bus stop at the Bright Angel Lodge. At first, we had to weave our way through throngs of people who had driven to the viewpoints, but gradually the crowds thinned out, and we shared the trail with few others who were making their way along the paved trail that followed the south rim for 12 miles or so.
All along the way, we couldn’t take our eyes from the vast expanse that opened up below us. At times, the trail would veer away from the canyon, but often, we skirted the precarious edge of sheer cliffs down into seeming oblivion. Every step of the way screamed for a picture, but we knew that no picture could hope to communicate even a tiny percentage of what we were witnessing. So we walked on, past brass tabs embedded in the asphalt every yard that represented a million years of time in the history of the Colorado Plateau.
After threading our way to a couple of breathtaking overlooks, we emerged into a midway that ran beside the Bright Angel Lodge (and visitor’s center, souvenir shops, and restaurants). The pathway widened for the swell of people, many of whom oooh’ed and ahh’ed over Skye. After we squeezed through the crowds licking their ice cream cones and snapping pictures of the canyon, and passed the famous photographer’s studio built onto the side of the canyon, the trail steepened for a bit before leading us to a series of majestic overlooks, the last of which was Hopi Point, extending into the canyon and offering a panoramic view that left us all awed and reverent.
Well… some of us were reverent. Joy is getting more than a little tired of my “these rocks tell a timeless story…” riff whenever we get near the canyon. She insisted on filming a spoof of my standard geology lecture at Hopi point. With six and a half miles under our belts and another three and a half to go, I decided to humor her. Other than a couple of kids trying to kidnap Skye-Boy, the stop at the last overlook was uneventful.
We backtracked the last mile and a half to the bus stop, where Vicki, Joy and Eli rode the shuttle back to the campsite. They don’t allow dogs and Dads on the buses, so Skye and I walked another 2 miles back to the trailer. Everyone took a nap and chilled out before supper.
The fridge decided to stop working, so we got more ice for the cooler. After five years, the trailer has held up very well, and I have no doubt that we will be able to repair the fridge when we get home. After cleaning up for supper, we drove about 10 miles south of the park to a little tourist trap called Tusayan to see an IMAX movie about the canyon. It gave us a chance to fly through the canyon and to take a virtual whitewater rafting trip along the Colorado. We drove home and crashed.
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