Grand Canyon - Day 2

We got up early on Thursday morning shook the dust from the crappy hotel off of our feet and headed to catch the South Rim shuttle to the South Kaibab trail.  This is the trail that the mules take to go down to the Grand Canyon floor.  Our goal was to hike down into the canyon to Oooh Aaaah point.  It's a small world...one gentleman on the shuttle was from Yelm WA.

This is the view from the top of the trail:

Looking down over the hill at the trail ahead of us:

The switchbacks were crazy!

This picture I took by hanging off the edge while Timothy had me by the pants.  It's hard to capture the steep depth of the switchbacks...they were impressive:

Us at the bottom of the switchbacks:

Prickly Pear Cactus:

 Oooh Aaah Point is aptly named:

Oooh Aaah Point - The Grand Canyon from Jeanne Hisey on Vimeo.

If anyone speaks French and can tell us what they all were talking about we would love to know!

We sat up on this rock:

And posed for these photos:

And one of the french men you heard talking in the video took this pic:

This is the view of the trail that continues down to the Canyon floor...it would have been cool to do, but you can't go down and out in one day...at least that is what they say...one man who rode the shuttle back with us said they were training to go down the trail we went down all the way to the canyon floor and out another way...they are doing it in April.  If you ride the mules you have to book 24 months in advance, we were told.  And camping along the trail just doesn't sound fun at all!

 We sat on the rock as long as we could...until someone else came along and wanted a turn.  And then we ascended back up the trail huffing and puffing and stopping many times for catch your breath breaks. 

 

They were doing helicopter maneuvers the entire time we were there.  We never did figure out what they were doing, but they were taking something to the canyon floor...kind of expensive whatever it was.

These are the switchbacks on this wall:

As we reached the top we laughed and pumped our fists in the air as we hummed the Rocky theme song.  Now to some this would've seemed like a piece of cake, and no big deal.  To us this was crossing off a Bucket List item.  We hiked into the Grand Canyon!  We had the time of our lives.  The whole way saying..."Do you believe this?"  "Wow!"  "It's like we are living someone else's life!"  We have no delusions.  We know we are middle aged, and as such we realize this is it!  This life we live is all we have.  We need to get to doing the things we want to do in our lives.  On the shuttle bus on the way back to our car I said to Timothy "I feel so alive!"  He said "Is that a euphemism for 'My body hurts everywhere?'"  We laughed and I said "Truly!"  For days we could feel our sore muscles and frankly it felt amazing.  We hiked into the Grand Canyon!  It was something!

On our drive back to Vegas to catch the plane home we stopped by the Hoover Dam.  The last time we were there they were in the early stages of building the Memorial bridge.  It looked like it was going to be impressive.  It truly is.  

Oh, and another interesting thing...the magicians Penn and Teller were in first class on our plane.  I wasn't going to take a picture, but since they were swarmed by others asking for autographs and such I took a picture from many feet away.  

Our trip to Vegas and the Grand Canyon was spectacular.  We had such a wonderful time.  Everything from bathing in a luxurious tub filled with gobs of bubbles, to feeling God's presence in a new way at the Grand Canyon we enjoyed every single moment of it.  We are SO thankful to have won the trip, and we made the most out of it that we could.  

To Timothy:  Every single moment spent with you is a gift.  Thanks for a great few days of adventure and fun, and for 24 years of friendship and love!  I love you Baby!  J.