7:00am and the family is just waking up. We learned our lesson yesterday and knew another sunset would be asking for trouble. "My balls hurt," came a cry from the other bed. "My balls are sore!" What in the world???? Ohhhh, the balls of Supergirl's feet were hurting. Thank goodness for Ben-Gay. She coated her feet in the stuff - I think that is the best her feet have smelled in a long time. And the room smelled like menthol for days. After getting dressed, we headed directly to breakfast (another lesson learned). With the crew well-rested and full, we headed to the trailhead to start our next hike. On the shuttle to the trail, J-man asked, "Are there meawls on this trail?" "MULES, J-man." "Are there meawls-mules on this trail?" "I don't think so," I answered. "This trail has more mules than the Bright Angel trail," the bus driver piped in. Oh great! "Ewwwwwwww, more meawl poop," J-man yelled out. The passengers on the bus chuckled.
The first thing we noticed at the start of the trail, was that it was steeper than our first hike. In fact, it was just one switchback after another for the first mile. And did I mention the lack of guardrails at the Grand Canyon? On both of these hikes, on bad step would send you careening down into the canyon 1 mile! That makes a mom a little paranoid. The rule of the hike was that the kids had to stay on the canyon wall side of the trail and the adults had to on the cliff side. Of course, that worked well, except when dodging mule poop. Thankfully, there was less poop on this trail, than the first one. I have already typed the word "poop" way to much on this trip! The trail zigged and zagged steeply down into the canyon. The views were spectacular! The trail was made of a fine, soft light-brown sand and was forgiving on our tired feet. We made it to our turn-around point in about 45 minutes. The stop was called Ooh-Aah Point (I am not kidding) and it was the perfect rest stop. It was made up of several large smooth and flat boulders at the edge of the trail. J-man plopped down in a safe mini-cave in the rocks. His boots were off in a flash and he hung out in his spot eating snacks and drying his sweaty feet. Tri-Guy put a band-aid on a hotspot on his foot. I feared there would be a big blister on his foot by the time we returned to the top, but the band-aid did the trick.
We stayed at Ooh-Aah point for 20-30 minutes. We stayed long enough for the first round of hikers to disappear and for about 10 minutes had the entire spot to ourselves. We found solitude is a rarity in the Grand Canyon and we savored every minute.
When the next round of hikers came through, we decided it was time to head back up the trail. As I mentioned before, this trail was steeper than the first and I thought with tired legs and a sore foot, that J-man would be on Tri-Guys shoulders in minutes. Once again, the jellybeans came to the rescue and J-man made it to the top all by himself! Supergirl seemed to fly up the mountain, she walked so fast. That hike was our favorite of the trip.
On the way back for lunch, we stopped by the Visitor's Center to let the kids get their Ranger Badges. They had their ranger books in hand and gave them to Ranger James. Ranger James was hysterical and loved kids and actually read through the ranger books with the kids to see what activities they completed. Grand canyon bingo...fill in the blanks...draw a picture of your visit... "Supergirl, I like your picture of Indians," Ranger James said. "J-man, I like your picture of...wait just a minute. What is this a picture of?" "It's a meawl eating and then pooping!" J-man exclaimed. "Hang on just a second," Ranger James answered. He proceeded to take the book over to show his Ranger buddies and then took it in the back to make a copy of it. It is now hanging in a place of honor in the back room of the Visitor's Center. We need to make a note here that although the idea of the mule picture was J-man's, it was Supergirl's talent that brought the picture to life. Click on the picture, look closely, and you will see the mule in the last picture is blushing!
With ranger badges in hand, we went on a fossil hike. We found out that there were fossils all around us in the rocks that we hadn't even noticed before. When the hike was over, we jumped in the car and drove out to the Desert Watchtower for a view of the east side of the canyon. On the way, stopped at Indian ruins. The Desert Watchtower was cool. We could climb to the top for amazing views of the canyon. It was so pretty, we decided to stay for sunset.
After sunset, we were starving and at dinner and passed out again for the night.
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| Vacation Pics March 2007 Day 2 |
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