North Rim

Day 41 - We were exhausted after yesterday, so the whole family slept in a bit (7:00 am)....hey, that's sleeping in for us.  We ate a quick breakfast, packed up the truck, and walked to the Visitor Center to earn the Junior Ranger badge. This Mommy is going to have a lot of sewing to do when we get back to Texas.  I'll be thankful for Great-Grandma's beautiful sewing machine that we brought back from Great-Grandpas house.  I guess in need to learn how to sew....

After the Junior Ranger swear in, we loaded the truck and drove the quick 150 miles to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Unfortunately, we had to make a gas stop, grocery stop, and pit stop.  Our 3 hour drive turned into 5 hours.  I think we lost our ability to make good time on the road.  

We arrived at our beautiful site 15 on the North Rim.  When I say ON the North Rim....we were about 15 feet off the cliff.

Yep, we were going to have to keep a close eye on these two.

Our site was the entrance of the Trancept  Trail.  We saw the "1.2 Miles to the Grand Lodge" and went for it.  

WELL.....this Trancept Trail walks right around the rim the whole way.  Beautiful for adults, REALLY scary for two boys that run, trip, fall, and don't pay attention all the time.  We held very tight to their little hands the whole time, and showed up two minutes after the 3:00 Ranger Geology talk started.  AWESOME!  We all needed to sit for a bit and soak it in.

After the talk, we picked up some ice cream at the cafe, toured around the lodge, and tried to find a different way back.  By this point, Carson was totally and completely exhausted.  The new route was the Bridle Trail.  The positive note was that it wasn't on the rim.  The negative note is that it was uphill the whole way back to the campsite.  I ended up carrying carson most of the way while Cole was looking for trees that had been struck by lightning.  We found this awesome Ponderosa Pine that had grown 5 trunks!

Crazy looking tree!  We finally made it back to the campsite for dinner and bed. We were exhausted!  Good night, Grand Canyon.

Day 42 - We were up and atom to drive to see the sunrise at Point Imperial.

Again....scary hike on the rim.

Note to self:  Return to North Rim when BOTH boys are old enough to know not to fall off into the canyon.

I saw a shirt at Bryce that said "The Big Five"...these are the big 5 dangerous and awesome hikes.  We plan to return when the boys can do all these hikes....without the continual fear of falling in to the canyon.  We would also like to do the Rim-to-Rim hike up and down the Kaibab Trail, but I told the boys when they're the size of Daddy is when we'll backpack the rim-to-rim.

After our quick sightseeing, we returned to hang, relax, and do laundry at the campsite, but first, we needed to earn our North Rim Junior Ranger badge, of course.  

These boys love their campfires.  They're getting to be expert teepee fire builders.  Good Night, Grand Canyon.

Day 43 - Today I woke up early for a beautiful sunrise run to Bright Angel Point.

The North Rim is so serine and quiet.  When I returned, the boys were ready for fun, so we hopped on our bikes and rode the Bridle Trail to the Grand Canyon Lodge.

Today's mission was to catch a snapshot of the famous Kaibab North Rim Squirrel.  The first time Curtis saw it, he swore it was a skunk.  It's the biggest squirrel I've ever seen and has a HUGE bushy white tail.  Apparently there's a Kaibab Squirrel on the South Rim, but it doesn't have the giant white tail.

I had to chase it down, but I got an awesome video!  It totally made Curtis's day!  The rest of our day consisted of fun rounds of Domino's, Uno, Wahoo, and War.  We saved Uno for the last part of the trip, and Carson absolutely loves it!!!! Super fun!!!

Tomorrow, we pack up and drive the 200 miles around to the South Rim.  I cannot wait to see what fun awaits for us there!