Grand Vacation-Day Two-Afternoon

After lunch at Point Imperial enjoying beautiful vistas of the Grand Canyon, it was time to drive south and see some other overlooks. The roads are long on the north rim, and it took awhile to get from spot to spot. The views were worth it, though, with amazing scenery in every direction.

Ed sometimes hiked a bit further than the rest of us--here's one of his self portraits.

You can just see from Desert Boy's body language that he wasn't enjoying himself anymore. It was clearly nap time.

I managed to snap a photo of this side canyon first.

And Ed captured some of the great shadows that the clouds were throwing over the treacherous terrain. I kept thinking about how neat it would be to be a bird and be able to swoop over all those side canyons and buttes and see what was hidden from our view.

We drove to a shady spot under some ponderosa pines, and the kids slept quite awhile while Ed went for a little hike by himself.

I enjoyed the peace and quiet with a field of lupine around me.

When Ed came back, Emma was more awake than him.

And apparently a nap didn't quite cure the attitude.

Nevertheless, we decided to push on and see another overlook, at the end of the road.
The trail led to the rock outcrop that is above the arch. It looked like an exciting little hike.

It was quite a dropoff from the top. I was certainly glad that all the fences seemed solid, and we kept Desert Boy close.

When we posed for a photo of all of us, this is the best we got. Desert Boy was having a tough time feeling happy.

I knew what would cure that, and since we had seen nearly all the overlooks accessed by paved roads on the north rim, we headed back to the general store in the visitor center area.
Ice cream improved everyone's disposition, and even Emma liked chomping on the crinkly wrapper.

There was still something that could make life a little cheerier: a shower! I used to be able to go for days without a shower, but that was in days gone by. And it was amazing how much better I felt after $1.50 for a 5 minute shower.

Meanwhile, Uncle Ed found Desert Boy observing a flower the proper way. It appears he did listen to our earlier admonishments.

After a picnic supper, we sought out a good spot to view the sunset.

While I enjoyed the changing colors, Desert Boy had fun playing hide and seek with his uncle.

And showing him the joys of toilet training. We've made great progress, but toilets are definitely quite optional at this point, even if they're not far away.

The shadows continued deepening over the canyon, but Desert Boy found a new friend with a video game who was willing to share, and he was much more interested in that.

It was a wonderful day at the Grand Canyon.

Grand Vacation-Day Two-Morning

On the second day of our vacation, we woke up bright and early. I can tell you that American robins are the first bird to start singing, and they start long before the sun is even thinking about coming up. My tentmates were thankfully more oblivious to the noisy birds, so we didn't get out of the tent until the sun was up.

The DeMotte campground was quite nice, although I noted that many trees had been cut out of it. I'm guessing that they were diseased or dead, and the Forest Service didn't want any hazard trees left to endanger campers. There were a nice variety of ponderosa pine, aspen, and white fir.

We were on the road to the north rim of the Grand Canyon before 7:30 a.m. My brother Ed and I were surprised by the big open meadows along the way. We had visited the canyon in 1989, but we found we had huge gaps in our memories.

Being early meant we got a good parking spot, and we immediately started off along a trail near the canyon.

Ah, the early morning view of the Grand Canyon. The gorge going down the center of the photo from left to right is where the Kaibab Trail goes, 15 miles of hiking to get to the Colorado River. I had remembered that the trail was very long on the north rim side, but I sure didn't remember looking at the topography and seeing how far away the river was.

We met up with a volunteer ranger-guided hike and decided to join them. We learned about the different plants around the rim.

Emma didn't seem to appreciate the knowledge. As you can see, she was in the jogging stroller, which handled the terrain just fine, although I wouldn't want to let go of it in the wrong spot! But alas, we eventually got a flat tire and didn't get to finish the hike. We went back to the van and tried to patch the tire, but there were so many thorn holes (I think from near our house, not in the Grand Canyon), that it didn't work too well. So out came the baby carrier and we headed back to the canyon.

The Grand Canyon lodge is perched on the canyon edge and allows for spectacular views. It wasn't even busy at about 9:30 a.m.

Then we started hiking some more and stopped to take more photos. It's hard not to take photos at the Grand Canyon.
Desert Boy likes to dress himself these days, so his clothes are always askew and often backwards. We even had two different types of shoes on the other day. It gives him a great sense of accomplishment to dress himself, but it can make for some interesting photos!

We continued on the trail to Angel Point, which had some steep dropoffs. Fortunately Desert Boy listened to directions. He wore his adventure pack so he was ready for exploring.

We found a safe place to do a little rock scrambling and see more of the view. The Grand Canyon is so immense that it is quite overwhelming. It's hard to know where to look and definitely difficult to comprehend the grandness of it all.

Although the north rim is remote, there was a steady stream of people visiting the overlooks and hiking the trails.

On the way back to the van, Desert Boy spotted a bright red flower and wanted to take a closer look. So he took out his magnifying glass. I thought it was so cute of him. Then we realized he had picked the flower to hold it at a more convenient angle. Oops!

Here's one of my brother Ed's great photos. He took even more than me and generously shared them.

It was getting time for lunch, so we drove to Point Imperial to have a picnic lunch. Desert Boy thinks picnics are exciting, and we were happy to agree. There were picnic tables at the viewpoint, but they were in the sun so we got out our lawn chairs and made our own picnic area.

The view was great, and we had a relaxing lunch. The main course? Why, chips, of course! We could get Desert Boy to eat anything if we promised he could have some chips afterwards.

I guess this is what Emma thought of it all.

Grand Vacation-Day One

My brother Ed came for a visit and I went down to St. George to pick him up. We decided we would take a little excursion and go camping for a couple nights. Ed let me pick the destination and even was willing to have me keep it a secret from him.

So we headed off to the east of St. George and after a couple hours found a good place to take a break.
The Fredonia public swimming pool. Because we don't have a swimming pool in our community, we are always on the lookout for good swimming pools.

Fredonia has a nice pool, with a little kid section, a main pool, and a diving well.

Uncle Ed got to have some bonding time with Desert Boy and Desert Girl.

Desert Boy always had plenty to tell Uncle Ed.

Desert Boy got brave in the kiddie pool section.

He went under water several times and thought it was great.

I like how he smiles with his eyes shut.

Then it was time to continue on, and we stopped at an overlook with some beautiful views.

The colorful cliffs in the desert made the drive very pleasant.

Then we finally arrived at our destination: the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It's the much less-visited side of the Grand Canyon due to its remoteness. The park entrance station said the campground was full, so we retraced our steps about seven miles to a Forest Service campground.

It was called the De Motte campground, and it had three spots left.

Desert Boy helped Uncle Ed put up the big tent while I made some yummy dinner. Well, it was yummy by Desert Boy's standards, combining his two favorite foods: ramen noodles and bean and bacon soup. I found it quite edible and would even eat it again.
Little Emma (who is starting to get enough adventures under her belt to be called Desert Girl once in awhile), enjoyed watching the whole process. This was her first time camping in a tent.

How did she sleep? Check back for the next installment!