Bright Angel Trail

Today we hiked a small portion of Bright Angel Trail.  Luckily for us, we are 2 time zones away from home, so as we awoke and arrived at the park at 8:05 am, our bodies thought it was 10:05.  Wifey hates heat and stress parking ... so an early morning seemed like the best idea on both accounts.  

Plan for the Day -

Wake up naturally, pack day packs and head to park.  

Hike down 1.5 miles.  Wifey tracks walking and running frequently and knows for a fact she walks at a rate of 20 minutes per mile.  So it'll take us 30 minutes down.  The internet warned us that hiking out takes about twice as long as hiking down ... so plan for an hour.  Total trip - 1:30.  

We are both currently taking college classes and as such have homework that needs our time as well.  Wifey promised we'd be out and back to the hotel by 12:00 allowing ample time for classwork.  

Reality of the Day - 

Wake up naturally, pack day packs and head to park.  CHECK

Wifey woke first and packed our daybags and laid our our attire for the day.  Hubby work a bit later due to either nature of Wifey's moving about the room.  We had some quick breakfast, loaded up the car and drove the 15 minutes into the park.  The park ranger working the gate provided two maps and some valuable guidance on parking!  We arrived at the gate around 8:05!  So far so good!  

We missed a turn going to our trailhead.  We rerouted.

8:24 - Parked and begin walking!  We'll be at the bottom by 9:00 and back up by 10:00!!!

Check out this video (mostly in 8X speed) of our hike down.  Sadly our Osmo battery died just before we turned back uphill!  (If you're reading this on mobile, you can see the video HERE).  

8:36 - We made it to the .18 mile Tunnel.  All smiles!  

Just below the 1.5 mile stopping point we took a photography break!  Enjoy (note, more text to follow)

Restrooms and water at 1.5 miles

10:09 - We start back uphill! Uphill was ROUGH.  

10:19 - Wifey falls down on her way up the mountain and breaks a hiking stick in half on the way.  She's fine.  

We'd already had issues with the handle of one on our way down which Hubby was now carrying.  After Wifey snapped the good one in half, hubby dismantled both, taking the functioning pieces of each and reassembled one franken-stick which wifey used the rest of the way up.

We saw some wildlife as well: 

Those were taken with the Zoomy lens of the DSLR.  For context, see if you can see the bottom version in this cell phone shot.  

Wifey struggled on the way up.  Hubby was patient.  

11:40ish - we reached the top.  To recap, Total Trip -  about 3:20.  More than twice as long as expected.  

Sunrise at the Grand Canyon - meh

Likely due to the 2 hour time difference, both Hubby and Wifey woke early and decided to load up the car and make a trip over to the park for sunrise.  We barely made it and Wifey wasn't honestly that impressed with the resulting pics or the quantity of people also there for the event.  Scroll to the end for a video!

Boo People 

After the Sunrise finished, we meandered along the rim trail a bit.  Due to COVID, the visitors center is not open, so we hadn't devoted much/any time to exploring the area the day before.  (That and there was homework to be done).  The below device is designed to help you identify and look at various points of interest around the Canyon.  It is pretty old and not in the best shape.  Engineer hubby made a valiant effort though! 

We did manage to get a quick glimpse of where we'd be standing later today ..... the North Rim.

Heading back to our hotel to pack and load up and then begin driving further North, we ran into some local wildlife.  

 

In summation:

America The Beautiful

 Our plan upon arriving in Arizona was to drive north, stopping along the way at some smaller National Parks to break up the drive and make use of our arrival day.  We planned to purchase our America the Beautiful pass from the first park we stopped at and use it the remainder of our trip.  Note to my Deaf readers - you likely qualify for a free Access Pass with doctors note.  Score for saving $80 a year! 

While waiting on our luggage, Wifey decided to call our first destination and double check they sold the pass.  She's still not sure why, as she didn't REALLY have any doubts it would be, but still, what's a phone call?  And are we glad she did ... turns out they do NOT currently sell the pass (COVID) and we needed to regroup.  

About this time, on Hubby's lead we had reached our rental car and were ready to hit the road.  Feeling stressed, Wifey suggested we go back into the rental car building, pull out a laptop, access wifi and figure out our next steps.  Sometimes working on mobile just doesn't do it.  Hubby graciously agreed and we hit pause.  

Wifey continued to work to find an alternate location for purchase that wasn't significantly out of our way north to great frustration.  We called the State office of National Parks who said the only place we could buy them was only open MWF until 3:00 pm (there was no way we could drive there by then).  But we then called that particular park office and asked if there was anyway we could pre-order and pick up after 3.  The park clarified they are open daily until 5:00 and would be happy to sell us a pass in that time.  So, we scrapped our "tour as we drive" plan and hit the road for Sedona.

A few hours later we purchased our pass and then continued north to Flagstaff.  The northern route through Sedona was a longer drive than anticipated so we just focused on making it to our night's lodging.  

In Flagstaff we stocked up on groceries, bottled water, and a cooler which would be our fridge for the next week before turning West for the final 2 hours of our drive.  Of course, that required stopping at Sams Club, Walmart, and a Gas Station!  

   

At last, we arrived at our hotel, booked on Hotels.com!  We were pleased and SO CLOSE to the GC! 

The hotel was average but expensive (ish).  It did have an open ice machine, which is pretty great in the days of COVID.  In the end, we paid about $140 a night for it. While we did partially offset this with a gift card, you're definitely paying for location.  We considered staying further south in Williams, but got a deal on this one.  The regular price is even higher.  There IS something cool about being so close to a national park that you can wake up early and just make a last minute decision to go see sunrise in the park.  Or see wild life roaming about your hotel grounds ... but those are later posts.  

  

  

 

   

Last Minute - A Planning Timeline

We are Americans.  We hold US Passports.  In mid 2020 US Passports are pretty well worthless.  For a few weeks to months, Wifey has been contemplating and discussing a domestic trip this year and casually googling United States Top Tourist Destinations and then making mental "nopes" on all the urban options ... New York City is amazing, but not till there's a vaccine.  Etc. 

Monday, September 7, 2020 - Evening hours - Hubby reviews upcoming deadlines and identifies a window of time in which we can take some soon expiring PTO.  Wifey begins research in ernest, contemplating a 9/9 departure date for a while. We go to bed with a plan to contact our real estate agent etc and confirm we can sign for an upcoming house sale early. 

Tuesday, September 8, 2020 - We speak with our agent and title company staff and plan for an early execution.  Plane tickets purchased for a September 11 departure during Wifey's lunch break.  A rental car is booked during Wifey's lunch break.  The rental car is canceled.  The rental car is re-booked, this time using points not money.  Hubby and Wifey are under the impression that all hotels are booked today as well.  We are able to use a hotels.com GC for part of one stay, some AirBNB credit from our canceled Passion Play trip for another, and Hilton points for two nights (including one at an Embassy Suites)!  We'll be staying in 6 different places in 6 different towns, the furtherest of which are 380 miles apart.  At 1:00 pm we confirm a dog-sitter for our time away. We look for tours of our destination .... they're all booked or canceled due to COVID-19.  

Also today, we find out the buyers of our first home would like possession tomorrow (they're paying us for the early access by day, so why not?!) ... so we go ahead and move our remaining belongings out.  Cause what else is on our to-do list anyway?

Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - Pre-packing commenced in earnest (ya know the selecting and folding and piling up of clothes stage?!).  

In updating our trip spreadsheet, Wifey cannot locate confirmation numbers for two of our hotels.  After research, these were never booked.  Two final hotels booked.  We continue to look for tours of our destination .... they're all booked or canceled due to COVID-19.  Wifey researches the cost of accessing each park we'll be visiting and decides we need to buy an annual national park pass.  She also decides to do that once we arrive instead of near home since its effective immediately.  She will later regret this decision.  We go to our local mall to pick up a chair we bought Monday afternoon.  It doesn't fit into our car.  Wifey wears alternating pairs of boots around the house trying to sort out which are more comfortable.

Thursday, September 10, 2020 - 7:00 am - we check into our flights and find we're upgraded to First Class!  Woo Hoo!  Wifey notices her boarding pass doesn't show Trusted Traveler Status, and begins tweeting DMs to and calling AA.  Turns out her birthday is off by about 20 years causing the snafu.  It is resolved by the awesome social media team for AA.  Seriously, AA's twitter help is way better than their phone-in help.  Our friend Vance saves the day by assisting Hubby with the failed chair pickup from yesterday.  He's our hero.  Later in the day, we sign paperwork, selling our first home, to be finalized next week.  Packing continues, as does re-packing.  Somehow Wifey can pack us both for 3 weeks in Europe in two carry-on suitcases, but is struggling to keep this trip in 2 carryons and one checked! 

We continue to look for tours of our destination .... they're all booked or canceled due to COVID-19.  We give up on a float trip tour and re-pack; removing the water-shoes and towels.  

Friday, September 11, 2020, 4:00 am - We depart our home for the airport.