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.