Grand Canyon

wildlife
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We headed for the visitor centre where the boys got their Junior Ranger info and were told that they had to attend a ranger programme to qualify for a badge, so we sat down for Ranger Jim’s talk on the geology of the canyon. Ranger Jim was a colourful character with a Spongebob fetish, who began the lecture reading out the lyrics from the theme song (“who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” etc) and kept referring to the Spongebob TV marathon he was missing. Despite this we learned loads about the Grand Canyon’s history and geology, and even more about Ranger Jim. He was the worst player on the 1955 school baseball team, was a Vietnam veteran and had no kids. He was pretty good at communicating with them though and the kids retained a surprising amount of info.

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After this we sped off to do the Kaibab hike, a mile or so down the canyon to ‘Oo-ahh’ point (I kid you not). It was well named as the view was a gorgeous patchwork of blues, violets and oranges. Charlie and Elodie then returned up the trail to take a plane tour of the canyon (brilliant apparently) and we carried on to Cedar Ridge where we stayed for about an hour, painting, filling out ranger books and looking at the view. We hiked back up the trail (somewhat slower) and went to the visitor centre where the boys were sworn in as Junior Grand Canyon Rangers by Ranger James who had kids being raised in Devon (British ex-wife) and was well versed in the language of twiglets and Marmite. Stan and Archie were thrilled with their Ranger fake tattoos and badges, and we then met up with Elodie and Charlie to get the shuttle bus over to Yaki Point where we watched the sun set over the Grand Canyon.

sunset at Yaki Point
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That evening we went to “We make Pizza” cafe where they had benches, self service and remarkably good food. The pizzas were humungous and delicious, and the salads were big and butch. Plus they served wine as well as beer (halleluyah) so we all got the dodgy tamale/chimichanga taste out of our mouths.

After dinner Jont went back to the park to star gaze (he got a book on it for his birthday) and saw 4 shooting stars. He said that the stars weren’t as spectacular as those we saw at Bryce Canyon but he could still see the Milky Way and really enjoyed it.