Road Trip Day 5 - The Grand Canyon - North Rim

A day to remember.

• We woke up at our campground and had a granola bar breakfast, quickly broke camp and loaded the car. We made the decision to skip showers at the campground. We knew we had a cabin at the North Rim that night and we hoping to get in early for a free shower! (The showers at the campground were $1.50 for five minutes of cold water!).
  
• The drive south on Highway 67 was such a treat. We drove through some of the burned area from the Warm Fire. That was about an 8 mile stretch on the northern part of the highway. The remaining 40 miles of the highway down to the rim was just lovely. Beautiful forests of ponderosa pine and quaking aspens, meadows, MANY colors of wildflowers that I don't know names of. Just beautiful. We saw elk and mule deer running across the road on our way down. We also spotted the Kaibab squirrel which ONLY exists on the Kaibab plateau. Dark colored squirrel with a very light gray tail.
  
  We stopped off at the store halfway down the highway to pick up some hamburger meat and ice.
  
• We finally arrived at the Grand Canyon Lodge right on the North Rim. We went in (7 o'clock Arizona time) and asked to check in. The nice young man from Australia explained that check in was at 4 pm, but sometimes they might have something ready as early as 2 pm. I was polite and said that was fine. He said, well, let me just check and see if there is something ready. And, guess what!? There was. So, we immediately went to our cabin and took showers in turn, unpacked and settled in.
  
  Next we walked back down to the lodge and took the trail to Bright Angel Point. It was about 1 mile round trip and not too terribly strenuous. I saw Indian Paintbrush up there and it was just gorgeous. The view from the point was fabulous. I know we have all seen pictures of the Grand Canyon, but seeing it for real is awe inspiring.
  
  We made sandwiches for lunch and went to a couple of ranger programs in the afternoon. The first one was all about the California Condor being reintroduced at the Grand Canyon. That was very interesting. The second program was about why is the Grand Canyon her and no place else, geologically speaking? Also interesting.
  
  I had made a dinner reservation at the lodge, but when I saw the prices (about $20 per person), I gave my spot to a couple who were not able to get in. I made four people happy with that move. Not only the couple who took our spot for dinner, but the kids, because we stopped at the deli and had some pizza by the slice with chocolate milk. Ahhhhhh.
  
  We went back to our cabin and watched Return of the Jedi, took another walk down to the canyon rim at sunset. Just beautiful. Then we settled in for the night. A huge thunderstorm blew over, but we felt pretty safe in the solid log cabin. Steve had his window open a crack and said he could hear the thunder echo in the canyon. Wow!