33 Things For My 33rd Year: October 2012

On a last minute whim, I accompanied my friend Jen, her husband Matt and her Uncle Rob on a weekend getaway to Grand Canyon National Park. I have forever wanted to see the Grand Canyon and somehow never had gotten around to it so I was super excited when it worked out for me to go with them. I mean, everyone should experience the Grand Canyon at least once, right?

Well, let me just say right off the top, it is certainly a sight worth seeing! Breathtaking, gorgeous, surreal, fill in whatever adjective you want and the word still won't quite capture the grandure of this place. And pictures don't do it justice either. Not even close. We started in the North Rim and up there it's not nearly as touristy as the South Rim. When we arrived it was snowing which made my heart soar as I've been oh so homesick for cold weather. The snow was flocking all the trees and meadows and it looked like something right out of a Christmas card. Because it was snowy, the clouds were hanging heavy over the north rim, at times, completely obscuring any view of the canyons. At sunset though, rays of sun would occasionally cut through the cloud cover and illuminate the canyon walls.

The next morning, Jen and I dropped Matt and Rob off at the trailhead on the North Rim before sunrise and they set out to hike the daunting 27 miles to the South Rim while we went back to our cabin, packed everything up in the truck and then started our own journey, a 5 hour drive, to the South Rim. Along the way, the views were amazing and we saw things I'd never expected. First was a Cliff Dwelling where a woman's car broke down in like 1929 or something and she liked the area so much that she bought some land and lived out the rest of her life in the cliffs. Meaning everything she used, her home, her furniture, her bathroom, etc. we're all part of the rocks and landscapes of the cliffs. No one lives there now and it's open to the public to wander through it so that's just what we did. And it was incredible. The next thing we saw that was unexpected was a place for dinosaur tracks. Now, we tend to think it wasn't as authentic as the lady doing our tour said but, either way, it was neat and totally out of the ordinary. Apparently, the land where all these tracks and bones of the dinosaurs are, is on Indian reservation land and therefore paleontologists can't come and excavate the remains.

Once we arrived at our lodge in the South Rim, we opened a bottle or two of wine and sat out on the back porch of our room and enjoyed the warmer weather. As we sat and chatted over our wine, we began to see deer. Not way of in the woods like one would expect but rather right by our room! And not just one or two or even three deer, but eleven! We got up and followed them as they grazed their way across the property, not being the least bit skid dish of all the humans passing by them. In fact, half the people walking passed them, didn't even see them! That's how we'll they blended into the landscape and trees.

Later, as we waited at the trailhead to meet Matt and Rob, it got dark and then a lot colder so I went back to the room (alone) to grab jackets and a headlamp. As I made my way back to our room, it was pitch black dark as there aren't any street lights. I wasn't scared though, the room was close and it was only a short walk. And then I heard a rustling sound in the bushes next to me. I paused and right then, a car drove nearby, shining only for a second it's headlights on the bushes by me. And that would be when I saw it. The ginormous elk eating in the bushes not 12 inches from where I was standing. Think of it as what looks similar to a buck but is the size of a Clydesdale horse. About that time, two peopl with headlamps walked up and illuminated the whole area to show not just the one elk but multiple elk. All massive and huge. I hate so much that I was alone and sadly, without a camera because I've never seen anything like this and probably won't ever again. Later, back at the trailhead where it was also pitch black dark, the night sky was clear and so star covered you could have easily mistaken it for a planetarium. The milky way was more visible than I've ever seen it before and just in general it was stunning how many stars covered the sky. I wish I could have gotten a picture of this too!

As Jen and I waited for the guys I decided that next year she and I should make the hike with them. It may have been the wine talking but even now, I think it would be a cool thing to say you've done. To hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim in one day? Yep, we're gonna train and do that with them next October. It'll be hard but so worth it. And I really think we can do it if we train for it. (I won't mention how winded we both were just hiking from the parking lot to the visitors center. We blame that on altitude.) Anyway, I had on my list that I wanted to spend the night in a state I'd never visited before and this trip allows me to cross that off my list. I, for the first time ever, spent two wonderful nights in the state of Arizona!