Day 27 – April 30

With one day to rendezvous we were well positioned and had a leisurely breakfast before departing to a couple of the local scenic attractions. We had several options but after a discussion with the camp host we decided upon Jerome and Sedona. He told us that there were opposite ends of the spectrum of tourist towns, Jerome being a historic mining town turned artisans village while Sedona was a high end shopping town for the well heeled citizens of Phoenix. Although we thought that we would probably blend in more at Jerome we had time to check out both before finding a overnight spot close to the Grand Canyon.

Jerome was just as it had been described with funky craft stores and art galleries and a lot of artists who may have seen the 70’s but sure weren’t ever going to be able to remember them.

We had lunch at a restaurant that specialized in hamburgers but we were unanimous in our opinion that the offerings were at best pedestrian and at worst reheated burgers, a disappointment to a group that punctuates it day with convivial meals.

After Jerome it was a short hop to Sedona. Our camp host guide had mentioned the scenery but we were taken aback as we rounded a curve to a wall of beautiful red mountains set off by the contrasting green pine and hardwood forests. As promised this was a very upscale little city. The downtown was lined with trendy shops offering everything from complete cowboy outfits, including gun holsters to very upscale jewellery stores promising the best of native art, they didn’t specify natives of which country however. The downtown was very low scale, two stories at most so views of the surrounding red mountains were unobstructed, making for a very pleasant walk.

As time pressed on we decided that we would head for Flagstaff, further west and look for some camping site that would provide us with an easy jumping off point for the next days run into the Grand Canyon and our long awaited rendezvous with Family # 2. Access to wi fi has been limited so we are not sure of their location but are confident that all will go as planned. As we drove through Flagstaff, quite a small town, we fuelled up and headed out on highway 180, ever watchful for some camping site. We saw a couple of sites for tents only as we drove along a very narrow highway, sheer high cliffs on one side and oncoming traffic on the other with no shoulder to speak of. The odd cyclist on the road also added to the excitement for Diane and Ike as they drove. At one point I had to pull in the passengers side mirror for fear of decapitating some hapless cyclist.

The drive was beautiful and as we suddenly emerged from the forested climb onto the plains approaching the canyon we were treated to the best sunset of the trip, thanks to the swirling clouds on the western horizon. As dark started to engulf us however we began to abandon hope that there was going to be any intervening camp sites before we arrived a day prematurely at the Grand Canyon. As reservations are recommended all year at this popular site we did not have any confidence that a site would be available.

However at the intersection with the 64 we saw the Fred Flintstone Camp Grounds. Yabb Dabba Do the sound pronounced. Yes alarms went off, but it was late and the notions of parking alongside the road may have effected our otherwise sound decision making. We were not deterred by the decor of the office and adjacent Wilma’s laundry done in ‘cave’ style complete with curved walls and rounded door openings. mercifully the attendant was not dressed in furs and did not have bones tied to any part of his body.

However, benefiting from previous experience, examinations of the washrooms preceded our decision to bed down in Bedrock. Still feeling full from the generous if unexciting lunch at Jerome we opted for snacking before turning in.

Day 28 – May 1

The light of dawn revealed the magnitude of our nocturnal decision. The 8 foot wall surrounding the ‘theme park’ component of this site formed the backdrop of our venue. The wall was white stucco with fake rocks painted on its surface in a unnatural palette of brown, orange, red, purple and blue. The wall was punctuated at about 10 foot intervals with columns that projected above the top of the wall fashioned to look like dinosaur bones. The mind reels at what clever devices lay beyond the confines of the enclosure forever scarring the minds of the youthful visitors. I chose not to investigate, confident that those wonders exceeded even my wildest expectations, set by the standards of the architectural efforts demonstrated in the office and wall.

Ike risked a shower and surprisingly advised that the shower head was not in fact a mastodon trunk thrust in through the window. A mere $1 afforded him 5 full minutes of luke warm water in a shower enclosure with a working floor drain, better than at least one previous venue we had settled in for the night. Serial readers of the blog will recall the ‘Western Skies Incident’ of Day 24, forever burned into our collective memories.

While Diane busied herself eliminating the backlog of our laundry, mercifully carried out in modern machines rather than the anticipated beating of clothes riverside on the rocks, Jane prepared a sumptuous group breakfast of pancakes with strawberries and Vermont Grade A medium amber maple syrup that we had purchased earlier in the trip. I find we compensate for our surroundings with our meals, the more dismal the site the better the food. Ike was busy trying to remove from their carpet the remnants of the flour and water mixture that had exploded from one of the LRT’s cupboards the previous day. Had the carpet been a bit thinner we would have considered just adding some toppings and throwing it into the oven as the mixture was well on its way to becoming well kneaded dough by the time the accident was discovered.

We chose to eat in the BRT despite the clear skies and warming temperatures as the ‘campsite’ really looked more like an abandoned drive in theatre than a place to have breakfast. The hook up posts where water and power are provided tilted from the grass less terrain at a variety of angles, none of them 90, and resemble the speaker stands of the aforementioned drive in theatre that had been struck one time too many by departing movie goers.

However on the positive side the sites were level and there was a dumping station. We were on the road by 11:00 for the short haul to the Grand Canyon. After a stop in the beautiful visitors centre where we watched a couple of movies explaining both the recent and geological history of the canyon we proceeded to the administrative building where there was wi-fi to check on the status of Sean and Carla. There was an email from Carla from the previous day explaining that they planned to take an early morning helicopter tour of the canyon. We spent some time checking up on emails and then headed to the campgrounds to check in. As we were waiting in line to confirm our reservations Sean and Carla drove into the parking lot.

Following a brief but vocal reunion we followed them to the campsite as they had already checked in. The expected exchange of stories ensued as we sat around enjoying the sunlight in the coolish temperatures of this altitude.

Our conversation was interrupted as an elk slowly grazed through the adjacent site. I had seen a sign earlier about not leaving ropes or clothes lines between the trees unattended due to the elk getting tangled. After seeing the size of this elk it would have to be a heavy rope and a very large tree to slow it down. Never having seen an elk up close before we were all amazed at its size. It was as big as a horse, and totally unconcerned about our presence. Although that nonchalance provided us with a great opportunity to observe the animal it was at the same time a bit disconcerting as the park information warned about approaching closer than 100 feet of the elk and deer in the spring mating season. Clearly, unlike the rattlesnakes of Gila, this elk couldn’t read so we kept a wary eye on it as it meandered through the adjacent sites.

We then all piled into the MRT and drove to the primary observation point for the canyon where Families # 1 and 3 were treated to their first views of the canyon. Here is words and even pictures fail to capture the magnitude of this wonder. Stretching as far as you can see is the expanse of the canyon with its multi coloured straitions marking the eons of sedimentation and geological upheavals that gave birth to the canyon. From the observation building we were afforded a 180 degree view of this section of the canyon. As we were on the south rim the view is across to the north rim, which is less developed and at about 8,000 feet elevation, a full 1,000 feet higher than the south rim.