Happy Birthday Dad!

Four dinner potatoes tucked next to the engine. This was a tip from some camping neighbors we met last night.  Fingers crossed we’ll have delicious potatoes for dinner.

Bison and baby bison hanging out near the entrance of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

We LOVE hands-on exhibits at the Visitor’s Centers.  Cody actually pulled me over to the large model of the Grand Canyon and asked me to explain it.  He even stayed for the whole one minute explanation!  Yeah for extended attention span and questioning!  Brooke and Cody actually sat together during the ranger talk, and no one was harmed in the process!  The kids are posing with Brighty the burro.  He was abandoned by the miners who were the first European inhabitants of this area.  The miners quickly discovered that it wasn’t very profitable to pull minerals out of a canyon one mile below. The miners became the first tour guides for the new gold mine, tourists.  Brighty the burro was befriended by a child of the Wylies who set up the first camp on the North Rim.  Brighty helped haul water for the campers.  There is a children’s book written about him Brighty of the Grand Canyon written by Marguerite Henry.  The burros competed with native animals for food and water and were removed by the park service by 1981.  It is believed all who rub Brighy’s nose will have good luck.

The ranger talk was at a very quaint lodge built in the 1930s. The ranger highlighted some of the history of the area.  The North Rim only sees 10% of the visitors of the visitors the South Rim sees, about 500,000.  Joseph Christmas Ives, an early explorer to this area, said of the Grand Canyon, “This is a wasteland and will remain unvisited for decades to come.”  5.5 million people would beg to differ.

These signs were all over the North Rim too.  We would have loved to try the guided ranger talks except that we don’t have any phone service out here.  Apparently Verizon rules the Grand Canyon area.  An interesting sign of the times though.  I wonder what new technology our kids will be using when they bring their own kids to the canyon.

We went on a half mile round trip hike.  Cody made it the whole way!  He spent half the hike singing “Home” by Phillip Phillips.  Just when a bug went in his ear and he was tiring of the up hills an older gentleman handed Cody a Mickey Mouse sticker and said it would protect him from bugs.  Cody lit up like a Christmas tree.  Have I mentioned I love all the people we meet?  A little down the path Cody asked if he had to hold the sticker a certain way to keep the bugs away.  I told him that it could still work in his pocket, as I thought two hands would be good for his already questionable balance on the narrow path.  Cody ran the down hills and helped me lizard hunt too.  We were all pretty sweaty after the hike, but the temperature is quite comfortable in the mid 80s. In fact a lot of people were wearing sweatshirts! It is all about perspective isn’t it?  Yesterday we went from 80s in the morning to 100s in the afternoon to 50s last night in the tent.

Now we are headed to Bryce Canyon. It is one of my favorite National Parks.