Day 22: July 8th, 2013: Grand Canyon - Desert View to Mather Campground

  • Jul 10, 2013
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Scott put together a plan last night so that he could bike the entire South rim of Grand Canyon National Park.  I was a little hesitant about the plan for three reasons: 1) the last road adventure in Taos led to Scott having a four hour bike ride instead of a two hour bike ride (he was a little faster than he thought) 2) there are just a few people at the Grand Canyon on a daily basis, I wasn’t sure how we would connect up 3) cleaning up the camping mats, sleeping bags, tent, pulling down the hanging laundry, feeding the kids breakfast, cleaning up dishes, and driving 25 miles all before 9:45 seemed a bit of a stretch. There are days at home that I am just excited to get myself and the kids dressed, fed, and out the door on time. Adding camping gear to the equation?  Despite my apprehension before he slipped out this morning I whispered, “Have a great ride!”

Scott left the tent shortly after 5 am in order to catch the sunrise over the canyon.  Then he rode his bike from our campground at Desert View all the way to Hermit’s Rest and then back to the Grand Canyon Village.  He biked just a fuzz over fifty miles.  No big deal…  While on his bike ride he stopped at the Mather Campground and secured us one of the last three sites left for tonight, and that was five minutes before they even began taking reservations.  They didn’t open until 8 and Scott showed up at 7:55.  Securing a campsite was great news, and then things continued in the positive.  We managed to see each other in the sea of people at the visitor’s center at the Grand Canyon Village.    As almost always with Scott, the wild and crazy plan worked out perfectly.

Scott was able to see our camping neighbors from Holland while he watched the sunrise this morning.  We were able to say goodbye while filling our water bottles at the water spigot.  They would have been great neighbors to have for another night.  We both pulled out at the same time and parted ways.

Just in case you think I’m exaggerating (because I never do…) about the sea of people: 5 million people visit the Grand Canyon every year.  That’s 13,700 people a day on average, and this is summertime, so it is anything but average.

“Best. Ride. Ever.” Scott’s first words after his ride.  “You’ve had a lot of rides in your lifetime.  Ever?” I asked.  “EVER.” he affirmed.

He literally took almost two hundred pictures on his ride.  It was hard to chose just a handful.  He was able to see a squirrel, birds, and a coyote.

Brooke wanted to know how deep the Grand Canyon is.  We found out the canyon is an average of 5,000 feet deep and ten miles wide.  The South Rim is 7,000 feet in elevation and the North Rim is 8,000 feet in elevation.

We visited the Visitor’s Center for a bit and watched their twenty-five minute awe-inspiring video.  We learned that the Grand Canyon offers backpacks for the kids to borrow. After getting the activity bags Cody asked Brooke, “Are you ready to be excited?”  There were binoculars, wildlife guides, fun facts, reflection questions, colored pencils, clipboards, magnifying glass, and a book about the Grand Canyon.  They loved them.

We ate an early lunch of bacon and eggs at our new campground and then attempted to navigate the park bus system.  We rode the blue line to the El Tovar Hotel for story time on the lawn with a ranger.  The busses were crowded and we had to stand the entire ride to the hotel.  The kids loved the mini-adventure.

The kids were playing a game on the way to the bus stop.  They had a ton of energy for about ten minutes, and then it was gone.

 

The story with the ranger was about the California condors that used to be indigenous to the Grand Canyon, but went extinct from the area due to metal pollution in the water.  Condors were gone from the canyon for forty-fifty years. However, the condor has been reintroduced to the canyon recently.  We learned how big the condor’s eggs are, that condors don’t make nests but rather put stones around their eggs, they are the largest bird in North America with a nine and a half foot wing span, they have a second stomach on their chest- it is red and keeps partially digested food for young condors, and a favorite fact for all the kids- condors pee on their feet to cool themselves off.  Currently there are seventy-three condors from the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park and only four hundred in the world..

At the end of story time the ranger signed their Junior Ranger books and the kids went through their badge ceremony.  This was the kids’ first group badge ceremony.  It was also overlooking the canyon.

Since we were so far west in the park we decided to take the red line to the end, Hermit’s Rest, and back.  We could have attended another fun kid program at 4pm, but the kids were exhausted from the Grand Canyon drive-by tour on the bus.  In fact, Cody was able to get in an hour nap leaning against Scott on the bus.

“It’s amazing how many hours of entertainment the kids are getting from a $7 shovel from Harbor Freight,” Scott reflected after our long day viewing the Grand Canyon.  We have an entire bin of toys, a myriad of ranger activities, bikes, and oh! the Grand Canyon to observe and the kids are happiest digging at the campsite.  We had contemplating two full days here, but after today we are ready to move on.  The kids really aren’t old enough to do any major hikes yet, and we saw the entire canyon both ways.

Brooke and Cody resumed digging in the campground dirt.  They came up with a new plan.  They built a mountain, stuck the shovel underneath, and then ran and jumped on the end of the shovel while shouting, “Mount Saint Helens!!! Explosion!”

“Can we stay messy through dinner?” Cody asked while he anxiously awaited dinner.  He is so dirty his shirt has turned a new shade of blue.  We have made it a standard practice to not only clean his hands and feet at night, but behind his ears has been a great location for hiding dirt too.

“Mount Saint Helens!!! Explosion!”

We went for a ranger campfire talk in our campground after dinner.  The topic was lizards found in the Grand Canyon area.  We learned there are only two poisonous lizards and one of them resides in the Grand Canyon, the Gila monster.  We learned the largest lizard in the world, the Komodo dragon from Indonesia is twelve feet long.  Brooke helped with a demonstration.  She was a lizard who lost her tail when a “bird” tried to eat her.  We learned that even though the tails grow back they are made of just cartilage, not the bones, like it was originally.

After the ranger talk we went for our first showers since the fourth of July.  The showers cost $2 for 8 minutes. I was highly entertained listening to other moms give their daughters advice on how to best utilize the eight minutes, especially if two people were sharing the eight minutes.  I heard one daughter say, “It’s no big deal.  Eight minutes really is a long time.” Scott managed to bathe himself and Cody and shave his mini beard all in eight minutes.  He only missed a few spots… :-)

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