DAY 22 Grand Canyon
We have decided we like the canyon so much more than Yellowstone because it’s more compact. I’m sure there were just as many interesting things to see and ranger programs to hear, but at Yellowstone it can be 50 miles just to get to a different visitor center or campground. Here the shuttle buses and walking paths make things so easy. Today we decided to do the easternmost leg of the South Rim trail, and start from the camper instead of the shuttle stop. That way we could take the dogs. They deserve a good hike and dogs are allowed on the rim trail, but they aren’t allowed on the buses. It was a little more than 7 miles to hike to the end of the trail and back from the campsite, but it didn’t feel that hard to me. I must be getting back in shape a little. Lots of people commented on the dogs, especially the international travelers. There were audible gasps from some of the Asian visitors. I guess they make quite a pair.
We made it back to the campsite and everybody took naps. Even the grownups. Then David started the grill and Michael and I walked to the store for some corn on the cob and eggs and milk. David made delicious pork chops stuffed with Stove Top and apples. It was already pretty dark by the time we sat down to eat at 6:30 p.m., so I lit the little candle lantern I brought. Nora saw the candle and said, “Happy birthday, Mama.” We decided to try to make it to the evening program tonight at Shrine of the Ages, which is at 7:30 p.m. We left the dinner dishes and caught the shuttle. A nice man told us how to get off the bus and cross the parking lot and catch the shuttle ahead of that one, skipping a stop and cutting 15 minutes of our ride. Things aren’t very far apart here, but the shuttles are on a schedule and have to sit parked if they get too far ahead, so a bus ride can take awhile. We made it in time and watched a nice slide presentation on lizards and snakes at the canyon. We were hopeful Nora would lay back in the stroller and fall asleep, especially since it was dark in the auditorium, but no such luck. A couple people moved to get away from us, and then David took her over in the corner where she wasn’t so disruptive. She wasn’t being bad. Just every few minutes she would sit up and announce, “Dada! Shoes off!” or something like that. Michael slept through the whole thing, fortunately. She fell asleep right after we got back, insisting on skipping her milk and story to go straight to bed. David and I watched a movie we brought along.
Not too much to share from the evening program, except that rattlesnakes don’t bite people unless they are harassed or stepped on, because they swallow their food whole, and they can see that a person is too big to follow. An interesting factoid I learned from a brochure here, though, is geological. Most of the time that the Earth’s plates move and force land upward, the motion deforms and breaks the land into mountains. But a large section of the southwest was raised many thousand feet in one piece. This is the Colorado Plateau, and is the reason for the Grand Canyon. Because there is no topsoil here, rain flows off the rocky land without sinking in, making many streams carrying rough dirt and sand. That carves canyons. Since the Colorado Plateau is so high and flat, the Colorado River was able to carve its way down through layers of rock more than a billion years old in just a couple million years.