Grand Canyon

I finally got a power cord, not mine but I'll take it. So I'm going to play catch up on the trip. Here goes.

I guess first I should say that Albuquerque was very nice. It had a clean and cool little downtown with a lot of little cafes and bars. There were also a lot of alternative looking people with mohawks and colored hair. The Atomic museum was pretty cool but they are having a campaign to raise funds to build a new one. I’ll have to come back to check it out some day. As far as El Paso, I wasn’t impressed with the little I saw of it.

I stopped next at the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Most of the good stuff in the park is north of I-10 in the Painted Desert. South of the Interstate is where most of the petrified wood is. Now I’ve been nervous a couple times but I’ve never had petrified wood. I’ve been waiting a while to drop that one. Anyway, the wood is cool but once you’ve seen it you’ve seen it and you are ready to go.

I arrived at the GC just before sunset so I had to hurry and set up camp. The first thing I noticed was that it was the coldest weather I had felt in probably 4 months. I could have used a lady friend in the tent with me at night when the temp dropped to a chilly 50 degrees. But I had to settle for extra blankets in my sleeping bag. I spent the next full day in the park. First, a four hour bus tour to the watch tower on the east end of the park. After lunch I took the shuttle to the South Kaiba trail and hike down about 700 feet into the canyon. I actually found it easier coming up than going down. It took me a little over an hour even though the sign said it should take 2. The top picture is the begining of the hike. (Note the size of the people at the bottom of the pic.) Next I took the shuttle one stop from the west end of the park and hiked a little over a mile to Hermit’s Rest. Then I watched the sunset from the village and walked about 2 miles to the campground. I would say that I walked a good 10 miles that day. I would really like to go back someday and spend a week camping, biking, and hiking. I want to try the hike all the way down and back. I slept well that night and headed for San Diego the next day.

….To be continued.