Ain't Life Grand?

Since it was a three day weekend, we headed up to the Grand Canyon for a break from the heat.

We arrived somewhat late (0200?), so rather than head into the park, we stopped at Ten-X, which is a National Forest campground about six miles from the south rim.  We'd stayed there before, and expecting the worse, we were pleasantly surprised to get a decent size pull-thru site near the entrance.

The next day, we headed into the park, and were able to get one of the last spots at Mather Campground for the following two nights, which was pure luck.  That meant we would be able to park Minnie (and the dogs) and be able to take the bus within the park, saving us a lot of teardown/setup and a lot of gas.

Back in July, there was a lightning strike on the North Rim, and the fires were still burning along the Walhalla Plateau near Roosevelt Point.  A lot of smoke visible in that part of the canyon, and there were a few road closures over there as well.  Would have been a bummer, since the drive out to Cape Royal is more than half of the viewpoints available on the North Rim.

While the views at the canyon are simply breathtaking, it never ceases to amaze me how stupid some people can be. 

For example... Mom, boy-toy, and her two kids.  The two kids are sitting on the stone wall.  Below the stone wall?  A 300 foot drop.  People have died at this very spot.  Yet Mom is simply too stupid to tell her idiot children that it's probably not a good idea.  No... She was too busy fawning over boy-toy (who the kids were calling by his first name).  I stuck around a few extra minutes waiting for them to tumble into the abyss, but eventually had to move on.

On Monday morning, we watched the sun rise over the canyon, which is awesome.  And yes, even at 6am, there were stupid people out in large numbers...

At Yaki Point, about a dozen tourists from 12 time zones away walked around the guard rails, down an incline and onto a outcropping about 30 feet below the rim.  Makes for a great view, but standing on a rock that is eventually going to wind up at the bottom of the canyon isn't too smart....

Since we didn't see anyone die a horrific death, we had to settle for buying a copy of "Death in the Grand Canyon", which is a great non-fiction addition to anyone's library, detailing the deaths of 300 or so people who have died from falling, dehydration, flash floods, and not-so-rare plane crashes...

As for the camping?  It was great.  Daytime temps in the 80's, and nighttime lows in the 50's.  Perfect sleeping weather, especially considering that we didn't have hookups.  Great sun meant the batteries were recharged by mid-morning (although we didn't really beat them up by watching TV or anything).