Well, we walked down to the amphitheater last night to watch the ranger program, but a few minutes after we arrived, we saw lightening and then heard thunder not 30 seconds later. The ranger was a great guy though and gave the girls the gist of his talk in 5 minutes, signed the books and we ran home just as it started to rain. The wind was blowing a gale so we jumped into our tents to stay dry. Eventually the rain stopped and Dave got out to open the back window so we could get some airflow in the tent.
We got up early this morning and took down the tents and packed up the truck. We decided to get breakfast on the road so there was little to do except to get the truck buttoned down with the net and bungees. We got to the visitor center at 5 of 8 (it opened at 8), the girls got their badges and we were on our way out of the park. We saw two mountain goats at the side of the road and not five minutes later, we came upon a herd in the road. Some of them came across and scampered up the almost vertical wall right next to the car. We stopped for pics and made our way past them as the road became clear again. When we went through the 1.1 mile one-way tunnel, we were the only ones going out of the park so we got to carry the baton through to the other side. The girls enjoyed that. When we came to the first town, we stopped for gas and saw the Thunderbird Cafe across the street. We all had hearty breakfasts and the girls found an Hawaii license plate on the wall. I said they could count it temporarily to finish the states, but that they should keep looking for one on a car.
We drove another two hours to the Grand Canyon and on the way in we saw a herd of buffalo - certainly not as many as we saw in Custer, but it was cool to see them in this park. We got checked into our cabin, signed up for mule rides, and made reservations for tonight and tomorrow night. We then took a walk out to Angel’s Point. The girls were amazed with the size of the canyon. It is impressive. We walked back to the truck and unloaded our duffles to take to the cabin. The cabin in very nice with a bunk room for the girls and a queen size bed in another room for Dave and I and a bathroom between the two rooms. We walked up to the cafe and had a small lunch as we were still fairly full from breakfast, but wanted something to eat before our mule ride at 1:30. Zoe and I had yogurt parfaits, Ella had a cup of black beans and rice soup and Dave had a sandwich. We went back to the cabin to change into long pants for the ride. Dave stayed to take a nap as he is too heavy for the mules. Zoe rode Pauline, Ella rode Leslie and I rode Bill. We rode along the rim of the canyon (a little intimidating as the mules like to ride near the outside edge of the trail) and into the woods. The girls had a good time, but Pauline had a bit of a gas problem. The girls decided that she should be renamed - “Uncle Russell”. They were full of giggles every time it happened. We all took turns in the shower - it felt heavenly as we had no showers in Zion, but had to make do with a wash-up each day. I had to wash my hair twice before it felt clean! Tomorrow we will have to do laundry at some point as we are all running out of clean clothes. We heard thunder (which, by the way, sounds awesome as it comes down this huge canyon) and then it started to rain. We dug out our raincoats and went to dinner. Ella had buffalo ribs, Zoe had pasta Alfredo, Dave had scallops and I had chicken breast from the kid’s menu as practically everything on the menu was cooked with wine. After dinner, we checked out the menu at the buffet and saw that they had quite a selection so we cancelled our dinner reservations for tomorrow night and will go to the buffet. We came back to the cabin, played a game of cards and the girls are now writing in their journals before we go to the ranger program tonight.
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