Grand Canyon

Wednesday, September 26
Today we viewed the east side viewpoints on our way out of the park. Each viewpoint has some new feature that makes it worth the trip. They are all accessible by their free bus shuttle or by driving. We didn’t lose anyone kids over the cliffs, so we considered it a successful day. Once we exited the park I had set my sights on the only RV park between the Grand Canyon and Colorado (a 4 hour stretch of road). However, for the first time, the RV park was full (prior to our reservations). We had been at full RV parks, but we had always grabbed a spot a few days or hours in advance of the park filling up. The next closest park in our direction was about 3 hours away, so we didn’t arrive tonight until 8 pm (we had stayed at the canyon until mid afternoon). The neatest experience we had was on our drive at sunset. Just as the sun was setting in the west, the full moon was rising in the east. It made for magnificent views in all directions. We happened to be driving through a vast empty area, so there were no city lights or any other distractions just a flat landscape with a few buttes to add to the scenery. We entered Colorado at mile 10,776 after a brief 1 mile passage through New Mexico. Tomorrow we will back track to see four corners (Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado) and then go to Mesa Verde National Park. For those of you who haven’t heard of Mesa Verde, it has some of the best preserved cliff dwellings of Pueblos from 600 AD to 1400 AD.

Tuesday, September 25
Today we entered the Grand Canyon and we actually spent the night at the RV park right in the Grand Canyon village. The canyon is indescribable. You can see documentaries on it and other films, but there is something missing until you stand at the rim and peer down 5,000 feet to the floor. It is simply a phenomenal geological creation. We really wanted to take the mule ride down to the canyon, but the kids have to be a minimum height for that, so in about 8 years we will do that. For those of you who may not know, you can ride a mule down into the canyon, stay the night at a ranch down there and then ride the mule back up. It’s an all inclusive trip. If you ever consider it, be sure to reserve your trip about 23 months in advance, that is when they fill up! Or if you want to go in 8 years, you can join us!
We attended two ranger programs today, one on the california condor and another on the mountain lion. The california condor is an interesting story, there were 22 left in 1982 and they brought them all into captivity to increase the population. They are up to about 306 now and most are in captivity because very few chicks are surviving in the wild. There are about 60 that frequent the Grand Canyon. We think we saw one, but only for a moment.
The funny story of the day had to do with the mountain lion ranger talk. One of the bus drivers was really talking up the program and said that the ranger was fantastic and a real firecracker. She only presents once a month and he really wanted us to make sure we didn’t miss it. As an aside, it was a fantastic program because the ranger was practically a stand up comedian. Anyway, later that afternoon Brandon asked me if we were going to the firecracker show in the evening. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out why he thought there was a firecracker show. In Brandon’s mind, the bus driver had talked him into a fireworks show!

Monday, September 24
Day 86. Before I forget, I must update the mileage report. We entered Nevada at mile 10,226 and we entered Arizona at mile 10,299. California gets the most mileage award at 1,589 miles and the most days at 15. We have averaged about 121 miles a day, which is about 2 hours per day in the car. However, when we actually do drive we typically average 3-4 hours in the car, so we are driving about every other day if you round things out.
Today we left Vegas early so we could tour Hoover Dam. The dam is quite an engineering marvel, particularly since it was constructed in the1930s. It has many firsts for dam construction such as cooling pipes inserted into the concrete to help the concrete harden. There were several other firsts that I can’t remember. The real reason for construction was to manage water flow because the Colorado would flood parts of California each year as the snow melted and then have very low flow during fall and winter. Lake Mead, which is the largest man-made lake in the US acts as enormous reservoir. Its level is actually quite low this year and the area is in a drought condition. Lake Mead still has plenty of water, but they would prefer higher lake levels. The drought was emphasized even more when we arrived at our campground in Williams, Arizona. We learned that they have to truck all of their water in because their wells are dry. In fact, the campground showers have a button you push that gives you about 5 seconds of water for each push. You can’t just let the water flow unending, you are forced to conserve. This part of Arizona and Nevada is just miles of nothingness. The drive from Las Vegas to Williams was mile after mile of desert wasteland. It’s a real shame when you realize that this is the kind of land the US government dedicated for Indian Reservations.