September 21, 2010 Trailer Village South Rim of Grand Canyon, Arizona

It’s Tuesday afternoon and Ross & Kelli left about a half hour ago to drive to Flagstaff to catch a plane on their way to Phoenix and then on home to Portland. We had a real good time while they were here and REALLY appreciate them coming to hike in the canyon with Larry and spend time with us. It’s been like a whirlwind these past few days. We have seen elk daily right in amongst the RV’s.

I’ll try to go over what has been going on.

Saturday: I did laundry and Larry cleaned the camper in the morning. In the afternoon we went up to the rim and to some of the lodge areas to look around. We didn’t do too much because we knew Ross & Kelli would want to go up there too. Besides, we had been here before, I think in ’03. They were to get here about 6:30 and we were meeting them outside the park entrance because we have the senior passes for National Parks which allows us to get in free along with 3 additional guests. Otherwise the fee to get in here is $25.00 which is good for 7 days. After we met them outside the park, we came back here and grilled hamburgers for supper. We sat around and visited for a while before heading to bed. They all had plans for a busy day on Sunday.

Sunday: I fixed a good breakfast for everyone of bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs. Larry, Ross and Kelli had planned to walk one of the trails into the canyon. They weren’t able to get into the lodge at the bottom of the canyon, so they were just going to go down one so far, then come back up the same day. Larry had been doing lots of reading up about all the trails and found one that was supposed to be shorter than the more popular Bright Angel trail and have some great views. The South Kaibab trail to Cedar Ridge was supposed to be a 3 mile round trip that could be walked in 3 to 4 hours. They decided to do this trail on Sunday, and then maybe part of the Bright Angel trail on Monday. The South Kaibab trail turned out to be a little more strenuous than they had thought it would be. It dropped 1000 feet in that mile and a half. Going down wasn’t so bad, but coming up was pretty tough!


Larry thought he had trained by walking our level subdivision, after all that 3 mile round trip was just like walking twice around our subdivision. He does that almost daily. He just forgot to factor in the heat, elevation and altitude. While on the trek they heard of someone being airlifted out due to heart problems from the North Rim Trails. They made it out safely, but decided maybe that was as much of a challenge as they wanted to do. After resting up and showering, we went up to the rim and lodge area to look around and had dinner out at one of the restaurants.

Monday: After resting up overnight, they kind of regretted that they didn’t get to go down on the Bright Angel trail. So they went up to the rim and the lodge area again which is where that trail begins. They walked down a short way so they could get some pictures and at least be able to say they had walked on it.

Later in the day we drove out of the park to where the Indians have stands set up selling jewelry and other souvenirs. We came back into the park and stopped at various overlooks for more pictures.

We have lots of pictures of rocks! We grilled for supper, went out to watch the sunset, and ended the evening by playing a few games of cards.

Tuesday: We got going this morning so we could get on the shuttle to go to the west side of the Park called Hermits Rest. This is an area that is only accessible by taking the shuttle. We got off the bus at several of the outlooks and took more pictures of course.


We thought these overlooks were some of the most beautiful of the canyon. We got back to the trailer in time to eat a quick lunch and for them to pack to leave before we went back up to the lodge area to view the unveiling ceremony for the new Grand Canyon quarter. There was quite a crowd gathered as Indians danced and representatives from the state and the mint made their individual speeches and the quarters were given out to some school children.

Chase Bank had a stand set up where you could buy the newly minted coins as well. There were a number of people walking around with approximately 10 rolls of quarters each. We were cheap, we just got one roll. We’ll be leaving here tomorrow. I’m not sure if we’ll have phone service or internet service where we’re headed, but we’ll try to keep up with the blog.