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Monday morning and we were ready to leave this campsite, hit the road and see the Grand Canyon. We tried to leave really early in the morning, because we had reservation at one the campsites and needed to be there before noon. So, we woke up at about 5:45 am, but didn't leave until 7:30 am. (you try to wake quickly at 8000 feet above sea level). The drive towards the Grand Canyon was beautiful, but not grand enough for me to go into much detail. We arrived around 10 or 11 am. As we arrived we received this really neat newspaper called "the Guide". The Guide was quite informative. It lists many of the activities you can do at the Canyon from hiking, to Native American Educational sessions, to kids stuff. It also asks the guests of the park to play it safe and be smart or you will basically die. Yes D-I-E!!!! You can fall off a cliff, die of heat related causes or a coyote may eat your pet (no lie). That was just an interesting piece of info.
The power of this place made me a little fearful (ok a lot). Once I viewed this abysal expanse of land, I couldn't make myself go down into it. OH WELL. The view from the rim (the top) was fine with me.
Anyway, back to what we did.
After we arrive, set up the tent, put the ferret in a position so that he would die of heat exhaustion or get eaten by a coyote, we went to get a good gander at the big canyon. Eventhough they give you all of that info they don't tell how to take in the enormity of the place. Nothing can compete with the power and beauty of the Grand Canyon. INCREDIBLE!!!! It is 277 miles of MAGNIFICENCE. As we were looking out at this marvel, Sean seemed quite eager to get a glimpse of one of the trails. The Kaiab Trail I think, but I could be wrong.
So, after taking a good look and just seeing, we decided to go back to the campsite. Besides, it was approaching the hottest part of the day, we were hungry and we needed to check on Charlie (the ferret).
We ate, resting, figured out what we were going to do for the rest of the and afterwards figured we'd look for Emily and Todd. We found 'em. Although it wasn't super easy, because the campground we were staying in had about 300 campsites spread over a large area. It was kinda easy to find them, beacuse not everybody has hangliding equipment strapped to the top of their truck. We talked for a few and we went and did other things. While Sean was on the hike I took the ferret and watched some Native American dancing. It started a little late, so it gave me time to by post cards and get TONS of attention from fellow tourist. I actuallyt met a family from Tampa, Florida.CRAZY, yes I know! The dancing and live singing was great and mystifying (the ferret wasn't impressed). I loved it. I decided to go back to the campsite for a bit before picking up Sean. I did visit Emily and Todd for bit to see what they were up to, then I headed out to pick up Sean. We ate, decided we would go to the Starry Night hike. It was about learning to find constellations. The lady that hosted it was absolutely hilarious, but at the same time extremely knowledgable about astronomy. She also had a flashlight that should probably be classified as it's own star. It was like a interstellar pointer (or light saber take your pick. It was cloudy so that ended quickly and we went back to the campsite and that's when the strange and unexpected occured.