{"id":572,"date":"2018-11-02T21:11:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T21:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lessintents.com\/?p=572"},"modified":"2018-11-02T21:13:09","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T21:13:09","slug":"day-96-friday-10-12-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/02\/day-96-friday-10-12-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 96 \u2013 Friday 10\/12\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tripometer \u2013 11,091 mi<\/p>\n

Gas Gauge \u2013\u00a0 847.866 gal<\/p>\n

Location \u2013Wahweap RV & Campground, Page, AZ<\/p>\n

Lodging \u2013 $30<\/p>\n

Cans of OFF \u2013 4<\/p>\n

We bid goodbye to Stratis this morning as he heads back to reality and responsibility in Pittsburgh. Kelly, Paul, and Dave headed off on the especially long drive to the Grand Canyon North Rim. It\u2019s a two and a half hour journey into the park from Page, AZ but on the up side we woke up this morning and enjoyed coffee in the upper 40s instead of the mid 30s. Today\u2019s drive is taking us through a very large open expanse of desert, much of it within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation. Kelly enjoyed stopping at quite a few different Indian jewelry kiosks along our route today.<\/p>\n

The first set of kiosks that we encountered today were almost at the peak of a pass across the top of a mesa. As Kelly perused the Navajo wares, David and Paul discussed the route we were going to take to the Grand Canyon. From our viewpoint parked along the highway at the pass, Paul was able to point at destinations over an hour away. The tremendous distances that you can see in the southwest are amazing. There have been more than a few instances where we believe we can see objects 100 miles away in several different directions at once, often not from a high vantage point.<\/p>\n

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We stopped by a few tourist destinations on our way including Navajo Bridge (old and new) which cross the Colorado river at Lee\u2019s Landing. Our lunch was packed this morning and we stopped to eat at an old tourist trap which now looks more like an ancient Native American stone building than a modern day building, but we were assured by the internet that the old structure was built in the early 1900s. Either way it made for a fantastic place to eat.<\/p>\n

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We knew from the weather forecast that the North Rim area would be cold due to elevation, but we were not prepared for the lush pine forest that surrounds the entire area. We\u2019ve been in the desert for well over two weeks now, it\u2019s been so long since we\u2019ve seen proper forest that this took us by surprise. The North Rim Visitor\u2019s Center lies at just below 9000 feet in elevation and the vegetation could not be more different from the Page, AZ area where we\u2019re staying. To be honest, at this point, it was a nice change to see. We are loving the southwest and the tremendous canyon structures that dominate the skyline, but deep in our hearts we\u2019re forest people and this area feels much more like home.<\/p>\n

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Getting out of the car at the Grand Canyon we had certain expectations, all of us. We have grown up seeing pictures and hearing people talk of the Grand Canyon but none of us have ever seen it in person. We were absolutely dumbfounded at the sight. Perhaps our minds naturally diminish descriptions and pictures of spectacular sights, but the Grand Canyon is so much bigger, deeper, colorful, and generally more spectacular than what the three of us expected. There have been more than a few destinations that we have visited that didn\u2019t live up to the hype. The Grand Canyon shattered our expectations and left our mouths hanging agape. So much so that Paul and Dave both set aside the \u2018no closer than 5\u2019 to certain death\u2019 rule, as were many other people visiting the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n

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Arriving late in the day to be touring a national park, we chose to run from one overlook trail to the next trying to absorb as much of the sights as possible before the sun set. Almost every overlook trail was within inches of a drop-off of over 1000 feet. Kelly, being the only non-agoraphobic person with us today, was dumbfounded not at our fear of heights (or of falling as Paul and Dave would say) but at the sheer number of people who were obviously struggling with the heights. If one assumes that a fair chunk of the population wouldn\u2019t even attempt some of the trails we were on, of the people on the trails roughly half were visibly distressed by the hike they were taking. When one side of the trail was towards the cliff and the other towards a wall, there was a steady stream of traffic moving in both directions on the trail that refused to leave the side of the trail against the secure wall. (Sometimes this was Paul and Dave).<\/p>\n

While we were all frustrated that we only had a few hours to spend at the park before dark, we stayed until the sun set, grabbing more than a few stunning sunset pictures of the Grand Canyon. The opening that can be seen in the canyon wall above is called Angels Window. The Grand Canyon left all of us somewhat speechless and very humbled.<\/p>\n

The drive home was stressful. It was yet another level of the driving video game through dark, rain, fog, mountains, desert, highways, and forest roads all containing mule deer near or on the roadways. 3 hours later we finally made it home much to everyone\u2019s delight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tripometer \u2013 11,091 mi Gas Gauge \u2013\u00a0 847.866 gal Location \u2013Wahweap RV & Campground, Page, AZ Lodging \u2013 $30 Cans of OFF \u2013 4 We bid goodbye to Stratis this morning as he heads back to reality and responsibility in Pittsburgh. Kelly, Paul, and Dave headed off on the especially long drive to the Grand … Continue reading Day 96 \u2013 Friday 10\/12\/18<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessintents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}