Day 12&13 Grand Canyon (APS)

Well, we made it! I was happy to see that the Grand Canyon was still open, as I had bad dreams that we would drive all this way only to find it closed!  :) I can't imagine what Clark Griswald would have done!  Nonetheless, the drive from Sedona was beautiful and we lucked out as the highway that we took through Oak Creek Canyon had just opened up the night before!  The fires here at the end of May truly wreaked havoc on the area. When we arrived at the park, we had to take an obligatory view of the canyon and we were all in awe!  Even though I had been there before, I'd forgotten how HUGE and beautiful it is!  The kids kept remarking that it looked fake and DEEP!  It was late afternoon so we decided to get our campsite set up while we still had daylight. We checked in and realized that we had selected a great site- close enough to the bathrooms, shaded and big enough for two tents and a pop-up tent for shade!  Soon after unpacking, Jack made a friend with a boy, Ian, whose site backed up to ours. He was 10 years old and from Jacksonville of all places!  While the boys played, we set up tents and Hall got dinner started. We had a delicious meal of spaghetti with meat sauce. Due to fire restrictions we could not do s'mores but the kids still enjoyed the marshmallows nonetheless!  After dinner, we played a card game that MC had taught us, Egyptian Rat Screw, and then headed to bed. Morning came quite early!  Hall was up around 4:45 a.m. and I got up around 5:30. We enjoyed watching the sunrise and then began the difficult chore of getting the kids up at 6. After breakfast, we packed up and headed for the shuttle bus which took us to the South Kaibab trailhead where we would start our journey!  The trip down was great. We decided to take the 3 mile route down to Skeleton Point where we could get a glimpse of the Colorado River and Phantom Ranch at the bottom. After hiking DOWN for two hours, we were still only halfway to the bottom!!  We ate an early lunch at Skeleton Point and then started our ascent. It didn't take long for the kids to realize that it was much more difficult going up than down!  We read that we should expect to double our time down so we planned for our ascent to take 4 hours!!  Fortunately, it only took us just shy of 3 and everyone felt a great sense of accomplishment!  The scenery was simply beautiful and the trail was perfect!  After catching the shuttle back to the campsite, we all took showers and relaxed for a few hours before dinner. Hall made awesome pizza and we even shared a bottle of wine!  Amazing day for all!