Crazy Things You See on the Rim

Side Trip to Grand Canyon Village, Arizona – 110 miles

It was freezing this morning when we woke up.  At about 5:00 AM we had to turn on the furnace to get some heat pumping.  I was pretty warm since I got up and grabbed an extra blanket in the middle of the night.  On top of that, Tilley was sprawled across the bottom of our bed.  The temperature had dropped to the high 20’s/low 30’s.  Hard to believe it’s June and in a couple of days we will be in the middle of a heat wave! Regardless of the morning temps, the wind had died down quite a bit and by the afternoon it should be into the 80s. 

It was actually perfect weather to run with 54-58 degrees by the time we went out.   Still suffering from the difference in altitude, my run suffered greatly.  I did manage to pull off 3 miles of run/walking followed by crunches at the RV. 

The RV repairman came around noon.  He evaluated the situation with our awning and said he would be back tomorrow.  He will remove the broken awning and look to see if he can fix the in-dash air.  In the meantime, we called a company in Vegas to set up an appointment to fix the air before heading up to Zion where temperatures are expected to reach 105 degrees.

We decided to take Tilley with us to the Grand Canyon this afternoon.  We left Williams at 3:00 pm and made our way to the Grand Canyon Village.  We parked at the Bright Angel Lodge and started our walk along the Rim Trail.  This is a beautiful walk with a panoramic view of a different section of the canyon.  Home to several hotels, this is probably the busiest part of the trail.   

On the South Rim, there are always visitors especially during the summer months.  We learned from our guide yesterday that during the summer, on average, there would be up to 25,000 cars visiting the park per day! 

Tilley really enjoyed all the attention she was receiving on our walk – everyone wanted to stop and pet her.  We were enjoying the beautiful view and the people watching.  With so many people walking the rim, you never know what you are going to see or hear.  I heard lots of languages being spoken, saw lots of pictures being taken, and experienced a few crazy things during our walk up the rim.

1.     While walking, a lady from, I suppose, Norway, Sweden, or somewhere in that area of Europe stopped me and asked if I would take her picture.  I of course said sure.  She then informed me that she was going to do a headstand and followed it with, “If I should fall over please tell my parents I love them.”  She laid her jacket down on the hard path and did a headstand.  I snapped a few pictures for her and she safely returned to standing.  Right then she offered to take our picture, which she did.

2.     Not too much farther up the path, a lady stopped Blake and demanded to know if we had given Tilley anything to drink.  He said no because we had just started our walk.  He had her water bottle and bowl on his backpack so he called to us – I was trying to get Al to take a picture of me at the edge looking in.  This lady was adamant about the need to give Tilley water.  She went on and on and stood there until we gave her water.  Tilley only drank half that we put down for her.  I quickly informed her that we had just started our walk and that we had given Tilley water before we left.  She laughed and said, “You probably will go home and tell everyone about the crazy woman who insisted that you give your dog water at the Grand Canyon.”  She was right!

3.     Do you know that dog poop melts on hot pavement?  We found this out when Tilley decided to poop right in front of the El Tovar Hotel.  We quickly used three doggie poop bags to clean it up, put some dirt on top of it and rubbed it into the ground. 

After all of that, it was time to head back to the car.  It was another great day at the canyon.

We returned to the RV, grilled burgers on the grill lit a campfire (the fire ban was over due to less wind) and called it an early night.