7th May - Grand Canyon

Woke up early and had blueberry pancakes with blackberry conserve for brekkie. Amazing Walmart hits the spot again – these pancakes were already premade, but frozen, so all we have to do is heat them up for a couple of minutes in the pan. Too easy! Drove towards Grand Canyon on the I-40. Detour through Williams to see the Grand Canyon steam train – it was pretty cool. It was Grand Canyon Railway Day, so the train was going full-bore and there were heaps of people around taking photos. Will got confused by the one-way streets in this crazy town, as the main one was one-way and then one street over it was one-way going in the opposite direction! Only time he’s been confused – lucky I was paying attention for a change!

Another 50 miles to Grand Canyon and we were stuck behind two stupid Cruise America RVs doing 45 miles per hour in a 65 zone. There was nowhere to pass and Betsey was getting hot because they were going so slow going up the hills and it was really taxing her engine. We have discovered that if we keep her speed up on hills (e.g. run up) then she doesn’t get as hot. So we had to stop, cursing those driver, to let her cool down.

We stopped at the National Geographic shop/IMAX cinema just outside the national park for postcards and magnets and because Betsey was getting hot again. We shied away from the $12 movie about the Grand Canyon – we figured we were actually going to see the real thing, so we didn’t need to shell out to see a movie about it!

We drove into the National Park and went to Mather Campground, checked in and went to our spot for the next two nights. We had a lunch of frankfurts, only temporarily disturbed by another Scotty Squirrel who was under my seat. He lives in hole across the road – a new neighbour. I went and introduced myself, but he wasn’t very chatty and only stared at me with one eye out of his home-hole. Then we had a massive nap. After the nap we went for a walk to discover this amazing canyon thing that we hadn’t seen yet.

Walking, walking, walking, through the trees, then BOOM! Canyon. Grand. Awesome.

Even though it was a bit hazy, it was incredible. You could see the different layers of rocks and there were no barriers along the walk to the Geological Museum, so anyone could plunge to their death as they pleased. Of course some people got nice and close to the edge. There were so many high bits and valleys in the actual canyon itself. We could just see the Colorado River peeking out from behind some of the cliffs. We walked along a trail which showed the age of the canyon… each long step was one million years, then a thousand, then one hundred, etc, down until it reached ‘today.’ Along the way the canyon was on our left and we kept stopping to take photos of the magnificent vista. It became less hazy the further east we went. 

The geological museum taught us about how the canyon was formed over millions of years. The actual size of the Colorado River has not changed since 500 million years ago, but it has been eating away at the bottom of the canyon since then at a rate of the thickness of one piece of paper a year. As this happens, the sides cave in and this makes the deep ravines we saw. Before this, volcanoes and lava also helped to form the canyon.

We could see the North Rim which was about ten miles across the canyon. We used the binoculars in the museum to see various points around the canyon, including trails which looked tiny from so high up!

After dinner we went down to the ‘Shrine of Ages’ for a special National Wildlife Day presentation. Jack Hanna was the guest speaker, who is some famous dude. He has been on Ellen, Letterman, Good Morning America and other shows. He is the American version of Steve Irwin, and he even mentioned him briefly. We didn’t get any signatures though, cos we didn’t actually know who he was! The Americans at the presentation loved him though. He is from Tennessee, works at Columbus Zoo in Ohio (emeritus or something), but lives in Montana. He was funny, but I found him hard to understand, with a strong accent and a tendency to mumble. Obviously the animals he works with don’t mind.

Thanks Wikipedia! (This is not my picture hehe).

He showed us some awesome animals with the help of some keepers. First we saw some birds, including a peregrine falcon, which is the fastest animal in the world. It can fly at up to 220 miles per hour. He said one time one flew between his legs at 200 miles an hour. We also saw some owls, including the smallest owl, a screech owl. It was so cute and small and bobbed its little head around. We saw a Fennec fox which is from the Sahara desert. It was so adorable and the crowd went ‘ahhh.’ It was cream coloured and had massive ears – longer than its  actual head. Its tail was soo fluffy! They look so funny with their ginormous ears!

He also showed us a golden eagle, which was pretty big and scary looking and even did a little poop for the audience. (I’d earlier said that I wanted a bird to poop on stage – I got my wish haha!). Then we saw a something monster lizard, which was black with white  (Will says orange) spots. It had a long spikey tail and is one of two poisonous lizards in the world. Not sure where it’s from, but I hope I don’t see one tomorrow! Then the cutest of the cute were revealed – two mountain lion cub siblings. They were so spotty and cute and were pretty playful. One was nipping the keeper and he kept saying ‘ow’ and the other one was wrestling the keeper and I thought she might let him go! So cute!

Jack also showed us some clips of him working with animals, including ‘Bearly Asleep’ which showed them getting stats on a gorgeous baby bear (3 pounds, 8 ounces) after they tranquilized its mum. The bear made the most adorable growl/meow. We also saw some bloopers from his show Animal Adventures. In one he was kicked in the balls by an emu, in another he was kissed by an ape and in another his hair was eaten by a giraffe. His hair was also eaten by a big bird of some sort and then his lunch was eaten by a vulture. The funniest was when he was on Letterman and his mountain goat did a poop on set. Then he tried to placate Letterman by showing him a tiny baby squirrel. He tried to milk the goat, and it ended up all over Letterman and the floor – was so funny. Might be one for Youtube!  It was a good show and we thoroughly enjoyed it, though if I’d known we would see someone famous and lots of cute animals, I would’ve brought the camera!