A Grand Finale

       

      OK, the Grand Canyon wasn’t truly our finale, we still have one more park to go, but I couldn’t pass on that catchy title. Never met a pun I didn’t like.

    The Grand Canyon. Anne and I had been here almost twenty-four years ago to the day, although I was convinced we had been at the South Rim, and this time we were headed to the North Rim. But a quick look at my National Parks Passport Book and, nope, we were at the North Rim back then, too. Neither of us have anything but the haziest memories of what we did there, but evidently, we were retracing our younger footsteps.

Still young at heart.

    The approach to the North Rim was surprising in the amount of green that was there. My vision of the Canyon is all red rock and dust. Nope. This ecosystem, at roughly 8,000 feet elevation, was dominated by forests and meadows. Even a buffalo crossing sign! It was a welcome surprise, since shady campsites are always welcome. This one was doubly welcome because it was a ‘pull-through’ site, which means it’s like a mini horseshoe-shaped driveway. What’s the big deal about that, you ask? It means no backing up of the camper. We pulled in one side, unhooked the Buffalo, and pulled out the other. A nice change from our last setup.

It's hard to tell from this pic, but the canyon is right behind our camper. It was a sweet spot.

    The site was situated beautifully, on a side canyon called Trancept. We got amazing views right from our site, and a short walk took us to some great outcrops, where we even managed to catch a double rainbow after a brief but heavy rainstorm.

    The next day we did some short walks and obsessed about the next day’s weather, since that’s when we were scheduled for our mule ride. We went up to Point Imperial,
way up there at 8,800 feet, and also checked out Angel’s Window and the famous North Rim Lodge. It was all beautiful, and the kids were impressed at the scale of it all. They were expecting a long narrow canyon, as opposed to the wide open one before us, with it’s many layers and interesting rock formations. But, truthfully, I think a bit of burnout was settling in, and it was difficult to maintain excitement, especially with the intermittent thunderstorms. But that was all about to change with the introduction of Bert, Cassie, Ronnie and Tennessee. But more on that next time. 

Some days I was sorely tempted...