We are back camping after two nights of cheap hotels. We arrived at about 6, got set up and made dinner. Then the stars came out. Millions. ..way more than we can see at home. We downloaded a sky map and found both dippers, draco, scorpio, saturn, jupiter, and the Corona borealis. Ellie saw a shooting star. The temperature dropped 30 degrees and we snuggled into our sleeping bags looking at the sky.
The next morning, we woke at 4:30 due to a bright sky and some campground noise. With all the crazy time zones (Arizona is not on daylight savings) we had been through we were time-confused anyway and there had been warnings about heat, so we decided to get an early start. We got there so early that no one was there to take our 4th grade pass. Yesterday we skipped Meteor Crater because they are now charging $18/person, but the Grand Canyon is free if you go early. And the Petrified Forest was also, because they were on lunch break. Go figure.
The Grand Canyon. What can you say? I have been here before as a kid and I remember the feeling of jelly legs as I saw the distance down. That is worse now, as 50 year old. Ellie says it is cool: very deep and a lot wider than she thought. Phil says it was cooler and less crowded and more interesting where we were on the north rim. Jeremiah has no comment. It is hard to fathom the mile down and 10 miles across and the millions of years it took for water to carve the landscape. It is literally awesome. But also inaccessible. I wanted to go down, not just admire the view. We are listening to Tony Hillerman's Skeleton Man which is set in and around the canyon. I wish we had more interaction. But we are doing broad strokes this year. A bunch of first times.
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