July 26th, The Grand Canyon

  


Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Day 31
The Grand Canyon

We woke up at 4:45 this morning to go see the sunrise over Bright Angel Point. The kids stayed home; we had told them the night before about our plans. We got to our spot about 10 minutes before the sun rose and stayed there until about 40 minutes after it arose. What an incredible sight that was, and we took WAY too many photos, I’ll really have to go through them soon.

After breakfast we drove to Imperial Point, about 11 miles away, and then to Cape Royal, which is about 15 miles further. Both places were beautiful, but we enjoyed Cape Royal better. There you can actually see the Colorado River and there is also a “window” called Angel’s Window that is really cool looking. Unfortunately it was hazy again today, and we had thunderstorms and rain most of the later afternoon, but we still had an amazing view.

The drive to these places alone is an amazingly relaxing experience. Winding mountain roads in cool air and thick pine forests that smell great. Hardly another car anywhere… What more could you ask for? I enjoyed learning more about the different types of plants around here. There are Ponderosa Pines, predominantly, but up at Cape Royal there are also juniper, cliff rose, firs, balsams, pinyon pines and so on.

After our drive we came home, had lunch, and then went to a Ranger program about Condors. The Ranger was quite interesting, and Sheldon volunteered to demonstrate the difference between a raptor and a Condor, which is not a raptor at all, but a scavenger. He did great! We learned a lot about Condors, including the fact that it has a 9.5 foot wingspan! There are roughly 60 Condors living here at Grand Canyon, a big come-back from 1982 when there were only 22 in the world!

We then vegged out for a while and made a fire after the rain stopped. Yes, it is even raining here at the Grand Canyon. We cooked over the fire and had Jiffypop and toasted marshmallows too. Brownie got her exercise trying to catch the Frisbee and/or the Velcro ball when the kids and I were tossing it back and forth. She was on her leash, so it was pretty hopeless, but she did get lucky a few times.

This evening we attended one last Ranger Program, the night program. We ended up with the same Ranger who gave the Condor Talk. He dressed as a real old time Yankee from Maine. Even had the “fake” accent to go with his look. He talked about astronomy and nighttime creatures and was hysterical and very interesting. Sheldon was a volunteer again, to show how not to get attacked by a mountain lion. Now it’s very late and I am exhausted after getting up before 5 am. Tomorrow we want to go on the 8:15 am hike, so I best get some rest!