Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Grand Canyon

Roadwork in Nevada and lack of signage made the beginning of our trek from Las Vegas Airport to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon very tricky. The Hoover Dam was interesting, but we made a very short stop due to construction and checkpoints holding up the works. A whole lot of concrete was poured over there. To reward ourselves for finding the way eventually, we had a pig-out at Carl's Jr. Bacon guacamole Angus cheeseburgers, criss-cut fries, and Butterfinger cheesecake make everything better, but my thighs are going to be huge tomorrow.

The drive through Arizona heading north from Flagstaff at night was really spooky. A cop got in front of us and decided to stop short at one point, just to mess with us. It doesn't help put us at ease that there is no cellphone service out here.

Who knew that the weather would be so crappy out here? Everyone thinks that Arizona is hot and arid, yet it has been clammy and rainy for our whole trip. However, the temperature was better suited for our 8-mile hike, 5 miles around the rim, and then a 1.5-mile trek down into the Canyon on the Bright Angel trail, and back up. Plus, at the end of our hike we saw a rainbow. It is much harder than it looks to climb back up. The hotel hot tub was in order.

This morning, since the weather was rainy again, we decided to skip our early rafting trip, which would have involved driving at the butt-crack of dawn over to Lake Mead. Instead, we went horseback riding in the Kaibab National Forest. My horse Roni kept trying to eat pine trees and plants along the way, and kept farting. It was good fun, although not as scenic.

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