Tuesday, June 11th 2002

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ 

Weather:   Completely Clear, daytime highs at the rim is about 80.....closer to the bottom you go it's closer to 100

Overnight low's are in the 40's

Total Miles To Date 4,072 miles 

Money spent today:

$6.00 on breakfast at McDonalds

$30.00 for 2 night camping at Grand Canyon

$10 on supplies at Grocery Store

$11 on dinner from the Grand Canyon Deli

$2 on showers

Total Spent Today

$59

Total Spent To Date

$1338.47

Well something I learned quickly about camping.  It's get cold at night.  No matter how hot it was during the day.  It gets COLD.  I don't mind the cold, but at least I would like to be expecting it, rather than waking up at 3am freezing!!

7:30 Arizona Time and I'm up for the day.  I get up slowly because, well, I'm on vacation.  I finally get up, pack up camp and get going.  

8:15 and I'm on my way back to the Grand Canyon.

8:40 and can you believe it...I actually ate breakfast.  I never do that.  Not like I ate a good one but McDonalds will do good enough.

9:30 Can you believe it, one stop opened up and now I get to camp in the Grand Canyon.  I'm camping at Mather Campground, site number 54.  Once again, a good and bad thing; I'm next to the bathroom.  Good because I'm by the bathroom and bad because everyone will walk by my site.  I'm going to set up camp, dry some of my clothes from swimming yesterday and do my journal entry for yesterday.  

My new campsite

10:30 I'm done and ready to go to the Grand Canyon.

11am and I'm out of the store.  Right in the middle of where the buses take you around is a huge supermarket.  This place had everything.  I bought some cold water, some power bars and now I'm going to find a bus.

11:10 I take my bus to the rim.  Because of the amount of travelers that visit the Grand Canyon, they recommend that everyone parks and takes the free shuttle buses to anywhere you want on the rim.  I'm visiting the South Rim.  Ok, no rim jokes.  

The view, as you would imagine is spectacular.  It really is that amazing.  I'm not going to flood you with pictures, but I'll pick the few that I loved.  And unfortunately, I don't think there will be any justice done by these pictures...It's a lot better than any picture can show.

I walked around the rim for a couple of hours just to get perspective and to start easy.  ...The view was just amazing.  I walked about 5 miles and it was just so peaceful.  The rim paths are really dangerous.  There is no guardrail.  You slip and fall and there's no stopping you.  I even met this really nice couple who are from just North East of San Francisco.  They even offered to take my picture.  The guy kept saying go farther.  I think it was his way of getting a free camcorder.  but this was the view of the picture.

1:40 and it's time to hike!!  I take a 10 minute shuttle bus to the South Kaibab Trailhead.  I have my water and I have my power bars!!  Let's Go!!  I take it to Cedar Ridge, which isn't the way down (I have no plans of hiking all the way down)  Cedar Ridge roundtrip is 3 miles and they suggest 2-4 hours.  Oh my god, I'm not ready for this.  Imagine taking any road and stretching it out for 1 1/2 miles.  Now take that road and drop it to an angle of 45 degrees.  It's so easy to go down, but coming up was a horrible bitch!!  I took frequent breaks and tried to find whatever shade I could, but there wasn't much.  I am in no shape to be doing this, but it was so beautiful.  

4:45 and somehow I made it back to my campsite.  I'm so tired.  I can sleep now, but I'm want more to do.

5:30 and I went to camper services right down the trail from my campground.  It was a $1 for the shower for 5 minutes.  Hell, I'm going to splurge.  I deserve 10 minutes.  I felt so much better!  I drove back to the marketplace bought a sandwich, some chips and soda and then went back to camp to eat and read USA Today (such trash, but it had sports....Go Yanks!!)

After spending some time doing that, I decided I was bored and I'm going to head to Yavapai Point.  Everyone here say this is the place to watch the sunset.  The sun sets at 7:45 but I got there around 6:30 to pick a good place.  I'm so glad I did because around 7:15 this place was mobbed.  Mostly with families.  I'm so glad I'm not here with kids.  All I heard were parents yelling at their kids.  "Don't throw that", "Stay away from the edge", "Just sit down"...that kind of stuff...  I tried to tune it out and being completely Zen with everything. 

And then the sun set...It was spectacular!!!

here's a before and after of the sun setting...Can you believe how much of a change there is.

Shortly after, there was a special "Star Party" as they called it right at the Point.  It was great.  First they had an outdoor slide show about stars and space.  Some questions and answers, which killed enough time till it got really dark.  At this point they directed everyone to a field where there were at least 30 astronomers with there huge telescopes.  It was great.  They encouraged everyone to look and share what they saw.  It was awesome.  First off, without the telescopes, I have never seen as many stars as I did on this night.  Plus, with the telescopes I saw everything.  I ever saw the international space station fly over with the shuttle connected.  I saw so many stars and little nebulas.  I know, I'm a geek, but who cares..  This was great.  I stayed for about an hour before I realized how tired I was.  

9:45 I took a shuttle bus back to camp.  Any by 10:30 I was asleep.

C YA

notes:

1617

Total Miles Traveled Today 

0 miles