Because my mother was very grumpy about missing the earlier part of the night’s sunset, Brad decided we would all wake early so as to experience sun rise over the canyon. When you’re camping (we stayed at Demotte campground, just outside the park gates) it’s not so difficult to wake up near dawn. Your eyes are blinded and your ears assailed by the sounds of birds near and far, pleasant and raucous. Even the girls weren’t too hard to get up for some reason. Maybe because we promised hot chocolate at the lodge.
It had been a very uncomfortable 44 degrees (or lower) that night. Brad had actually decided to crawl into bed with the four of us who were sharing a king-sized air mattress. He said he made that call when he couldn’t stop the shivers.
So, here’s what we saw.
Then we went up to the lodge and ate breakfast. We sat in the window right behind us (look closely; we’re on that patio). The Grand Canyon Lodge is much touted for its impressiveness, but really it has nothing on the Lake Crescent Lodge. It seemed a little rundown, but I guess with zillions of folks walking through to get to the sunroom overlook or the back porch, that’s just what happens. It was neat, though, and the breakfast was pretty decent. It was the ideal place to chillax and gaze out the window over the beauty of the Grand Canyon before we headed out to the long drive to the South Rim.
Along the way between the two rims we passed over the Colorado River at Lee’s (something – bridge? canyon? crossing?). We stopped to take some pictures and bought some jewelry from some Native American women who definitely weren’t speaking English. That was one thing we noticed about traveling all these canyons: there were SO many people who were not native English speakers. I would say probably half of the visitors were from other countries. That’s how impressive these things are – people come from everywhere to see them. How many US citizens take the time? My mother came with us on this leg of the trip because she wanted to see the Grand Canyon “before she died.” Or as Caroline puts it, “before your death chamber.” CHECK.
Driving to the South Rim we passed across rocky, dry lands with nothing but scrub brush dotting the landscape. Honestly, it was pretty awful compared to the lush but rugged beauty of the North Rim approach from the north (since we were coming from Salt Lake City).
The one real advantage to the South Rim is that you can actually see the Colorado River. I don’t think there was any North Rim viewpoint that would show the river.
We went to the Watchtower. Of course, there was a gift shop there. There were no less than 4 gift shops at the South Rim.
The highlight of the South Rim trip was staring at the sky, watching two California condors soar overhead. Numbers 87 and 33 made my day.
Our cute little family.
IRCIN ATTACK!
We thought Smokey was pretty awesome. He was totally buff.
Kaibab National Forest – love it! When studying environmental science in college we looked at the Kaibab deer studies as clear and simple demonstrations of population issues.
This massive guy was just right outside the park. They obviously see a lot of people and are unimpressed. There were maybe 20 cars stopped alongside the road to capture this elk’s mug on a flash card.
We left the Grand Canyon and headed to Phoenix to spend the night. Along the way Brad and I kept teasing my mom about camping, since our previous night’s campsite hadn’t had a shower and it was 105 degrees near Phoenix at 10:30 at night. I told her this campground didn’t have a shower either, and that all the other places were booked up because of a bluegrass festival nearby. But I figured the attendees probably wouldn’t be too bad because they wouldn’t be back in the campground until after we’d gone to sleep. And then it looked like it might rain so we figured we’d put the fly on the tent, but then that would trap the heat so Brad and I were torn as to what to do. She just kind of sat there in a daze, groaning. It was awesome.
And then we pulled into a Hampton Inn. I had reserved it hours earlier using hotels.com. 
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