Day Nine and Ten: Grand Canyon

The toilets at Snow Cap Drive-In on Route 66

Yup...so that early morning van load after two days in Vegas wasn't the funnest...needless to say card games and van play took a back seat today (no pun intended ;p haha...) in exchange for some much needed sleep!

We stopped for lunch at the funnest place in the world while getting our kicks on Route 66 - Snow Cap Drive-In...check it out:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delgadillo's_Snow_Cap_Drive-In .  Such a laugh!

Grand Canyon - paper bag styles!

After lunch we continued on to the Grand Canyon.  For those that wanted we had a the option available to us to do a flight over the Canyon - which, as amazing as that would have been it turns out its not considered a 'neccasary expense' in my work budget (tough life! :p).  We dropped the 'flyers' off and the rest of us continued on to the canyon.  In true Trek style, because nothing is ever 'normal' on these things, we were all given a paper bag that we had to draw a face onto and wear and we then made a human chain that Kaitlin lead (I swear on a much more windy path than necessary just because we were paper bagged) to the edge of the canyon before we removed them.  Wow...it doesn't matter how many times I go to that place, it amazes me every time!  Plus this time I was amazing everyone else with my bag head too :)  Win win!

Sunset at the Canyon

Once we had arrived at camp and set up my group was on cooking - vegetarian pasta tonight, yum!  I really enjoy the group cooking side of things, I think it's really fun and you get to try all sorts of new things - plus one of my groupies has a degree in hospitality which is a bonus! :D  We then had a group chat about the possible hike options for tomorrow before heading off to our tents for bed.

The next morning those that wanted to were able to get up early (like 4am type early) to go and see sunrise at the Canyon and then head off to do the 'Bright Angel' trail to the bottom of the Canyon.  The rest of us took a more lazy approach (in my defense I've been to the canyon before!) and had a later start to the day before doing a small walk around the canyon rim, a ranger talk and then heading in to town (so like...5 shops :p) to look around.  I finished off my afternoon with a well deserved nap whilst the hikers still out battled a Canyon style thunder storm (can't say I'm sad I missed that actually!).

After dinner a group of us headed back to the canyon to see sunset - absolutely beautiful.  It's so much easier in a situation like this where somebody else transports you everywhere to be able to see the best possible things!

July 4th Night Parade

Tomorrow is July 4th but for some reason this town had their parade tonight (no idea why but I'm not complaining!).  It was a typical small town night parade - floats and flag bearers and everything lit up with Christmas lights, but that's why I liked it!  I always love 'doing' a city or town the way that the people that live there 'do' it.

Post-parade we headed to the local bowling ally...sorry NZ...I may have let you down...awkward.  Those bloody Germans really know how to bowl!