Grand Canyon Day 3

Well I slept in this morning. After getting up two mornings in a row at 4.30 or earlier I was determined to stay in bed and enjoy not having to get up. It felt really late, but it was still only 8.00am. Sherry was keen to have some breakfast, which only ran until 10 am, so she git up and went down for that. I stayd in bed and channel surfed between ESPN Classic and EPSN. ESPN was showing some NFL pregame while ESPN Classic was showing some old school bowling from 1987. Was 1987 that long ago? Or are bowlers just that dorky? Either way its not a good result. Mats Somebody looked menacing with his big glasses and front teeth protuding out whenever he bowled. I bet you that would have been me if I was a bowler. He whipped the guy with the porn moustache's butt though.

Sherry came back upstairs at around 9.30 after reportdely having the worst breakfast ever. Dodgy cereal, dody coffee, muffins and toast with only butter. Funky yoghurt. Bleh! Sounds like staying bed was a good move.

We got going and the car park was pretty much empty. Yep we were running late. We parked down near the train depot at around 10.20. We then lucked out pretty well with all the shuttle buses. And we were clued in pretty early as to where the best sunset and sunrise locations were. First off we thought we'd catch the green line shuttle out to Pipe Creek Vista and then the South Kalihab Trailhead and finally Yaki Point before returning to the Visitors Centre for a cafeteria lunch. Catching or waiting for the bus does take time and our morning did go quickly. You really do need to get here as early as possible if you want to see each of the vistas.

It would have been cool to hike the trails down to the canyon floor but we were not prepared and didnt have the time. There was a sign at the top of the trail that said : Warning, Do not expect to go on this without expecting to not follow these syptoms - cardiac arrest, brain failure or death.Well we sure didnt want that and Darryl would be unhappy if she wasn't up for working at the conference due to death or something.

Back at the cafateria it was hard to workout what to get - but we settled on some subs and cake. The Salad bar girl was really nice teeing me up wth all the sauces. I had trouble opening my mayo packet and when I did open it I wonder where half of it went. I looked up and there was a splash on the table and heaps all over Sherry's T-shirt. It had become airborn out of the packet and had flown like a Pocket Tanks shot across the whole table.

After lunch, Shery thought she lost me around the toilets area. We then headed up to the Red trail. It worked out pretty well. We saw a young deer, I tried to get a photo but the deer was a bit shy. Powell Point was way out by itself and as you walked out  to the point the diameter of the path was only about 4 metres with a drop either side down to the bottom.

At Hermits Point a guy whose wife was in 'the little girl's room' was taking photos for people under the hermits point sign. On the bus I remember a cople of young kids who must of been from the deep south 'It's three forty five!'.

A small deer

We then went down to Hopi Point and took some photos and video for about an hour. The colours here were amazing as sunset approached. The clouds had provided a fairly different site to what we saw on Friday.

We caught the bus back to the Village and then walked up to Bright Angel Lodge for some dinner. I thought it was dark enought to get the trusty ol lightsbare out to shed some light on the matter. I couldnt help but cut trees down along the way. It only made a the faintest of difference light wise too. In the souvenir shop we ran into Tim and Blair, a couple from San Jose, who we had seen on yesterday's tour. They were really nice and we had a bit of a chin wag for a while. They were here because it was Tim's 30th tomorrow. Pretty neat birthday present.

We tried to get dinner here but there was a wait. We wanted to see the IMAX tour so we skipped that and walked back to the car. it was pitch black so we walked aklong the road to the train depot. A few cars came past. One was approaching really slowly. Then all of a sudden we saw why. A massive male deer was approaching. It walked right past us on the right side of the road. It was literally 3 metres away. And it was a huger deer. As big as a horse with massive antlers. It was the coolest thing to see - one of those massive unexpected things that you never forget - like the East side subway effort in New York last year.

We then drove out, kind of struggling but not, becuause i followed my nose with its built in compass. We got to IMAX with great timing and saw that. It was a bit short but spectacular on the big screen. It briefly touched on the Indians in the area, then showed the spanish arriving and then did a bit on Powell and his expedition down the Colorado. The girl behind the counter gave me a free ppopcorn after the show which was nice of her. There were plenty of souveniers we could have bought - a book, dvd's, t-shirts. i ended up getting a cool man-necklace.

We then got some Maccas before coming home. I watched the NFL highlights and was disappointed with Sportscentre's Blitz for not showing Green Bay's 26-0 win over Detroit. It was cool to see the Patriots 59-0 win over the Titans in the snow. Imagine if it had snowed like that before we went to Boston last year?