This was a long drive...7.5 hours, which consisted of a lunch stop. I asked Kenny if we wants a burger, he stays drive her on, burger place is on the right and of course I go straight on!! Clearly we need to improve our communication methods here, you'd think after 2.5 months we'd have that sorted. Also we're kinda scared of running outa petrol because we didn't take the breakdown cover. So at a quarter of a tank, we pull in and fill up at $4.09 per gallon (certainly not a bad price compared to home) just incase we don't see another station for a while. The next station, about 5 miles later, was $3.59, the joys of being cautious. This is also about the same time we figure out the car has a range and we had about 100miles left in the tank.
About 6 hours into the 7.5 hour drive, the rain decided to make an appearance!! An unwelcome visitor. By the time we made it to the campground, there was thunder and showers. We camped Mather campground, juniper loop, site 111. Decided not to put the tent up in the rain and instead do some sight seeing first. So with a map in hand, we drove around like idiots not being able to find anything. How hard could it really be to drive around a national park?! And why can't we see the canyon? So found a parking space at Angel Lodge, which I vaguely remember, and Kenny saw the canyon for the first time. Just as grand and beautiful as ever, a postcard picture, perfect :) We decided the best idea was to hop on a shuttle bus to get our bearings and make plans for tomorrow. Our route clearly showed us where we had gone wrong driving, we discovered that the park has a pizzahut (soo wrong) and that there are lots of deer and elk.
We get back, get the tent set up and make some dinner. Kenny tries in vain for half an hour to get a fire started without any luck as all the wood is wet. So we call it a night shortly after dinner because it's dark and cold, and surely it has to be warmer in our sleeping bags...
It was an absolutely freezing night. Neither of us having slept a wink since we crawled in at 9.30pm, ended up getting up at 3.30am and slept in the car. Now ordinarily, 3 degrees isn't that cold in N.Ireland terms, but coming from 30 degree heat, it was just a slap in the face. It didn't help that having minimal space in our rucksacks (well we maybe didn't pack the right clothes), our priorities got mixed up and we had the thinnest sleeping mat. We might aswell have been sleeping on paper; all it did was make one extra layer between us and the ground. Which resulted in us having to lay down as many clothes as possible in order to achieve some comfort and warmth. On this occasion tho, it hadn't worked. Not helped by the fact that Kennys pillow had decided to give up on him too, so it was a make shift pillow; a sleeping bag stuff stack filled with clothes just like me. Having had a tiring day, we'd treated ourselves to a Danish pastry, which we'd planned to eat in the tent before we'd gone to sleep. We forgot so as we were moving to the car, Kenny said to bring it with us to the car to eat. Off he goes to the toilet, I start munching it, he comes back midway through the last bite; oops I forgot to leave him some..

We got up earlyish in the morning and started on our first trail: Bright Angel. We went for the easy option of 3 mile round trip; everywhere we went there were horror stories of dehydration and exhaustion; we chose life. It took us 50 mins down, and ironically 45mins up. Not bad for a trail they say takes 2-4 hours. In hindsight we could have continued further down into the canyon, but we'd got great views from where we did go.
Next we hopped on the red bus to Hermits Rest, picked up some mayo for this evenings wraps and hopped back on the bus. Our next stop was Mohave Point. From here, we walked part of the Rim Trail via Hopi point and Powell point. All have beautiful, slightly different views of the canyon and each with boards telling different stories or giving geological information. Enough walking for one day, we got back on the bus to the village, with the intention of jumping on and off the yellow bus, but we were so exhausted just went for a wee ride then back to the campground.

After an absolutely freezing night, all we wanted was a fire to cook some food on and to keep us warm. When we say some cooked food, we mean chopped pepper and onion wrapped in tinfoil, to put in our wraps, and heating water inside tinfoil so we could have a hot chocolate. So off Kenny goes to gather wood; we were in a forest so there are bits and pieces lying around (although plenty of signs saying gathering firewood is prohibited.) He's also a bit sneaky and looks in other empty campsites to see if they've left wood in the fire ring. So back he comes, big smile on his face and a good pile of wood.
"Where'd ya get that?"
"That site over there had loads. It looked like it was ready to light too, kindling and all."
Well maybe it was...
We we the fire going, good we fire too, the veg is cooked, as well as the hot chocolate, and were enjoying getting hot food into us when... You've guessed it. The people at the 'empty' campsite return.
"Oi! Someone's nicked our wood!" Little girl shouts to her dad. In the meantime, Kenny and I are sitting 20 metres away going beet root and looking guilty.
"Excuse me. Did you see who took our wood?"
Well it's time to consider our options...
a) be thieves and lie about it and have karma turn around and bite us in the arse
b) be honest and admit our genuine mistake
"Sorry. It was me." Says Kenny
"O.." Says little girl and walks off to tell the rest if the family while we are just hoping the ground will swallow us up.
So over comes Dad, and we've already decided to do the right thing, so before he can say anything, we apologise, but tell him it was a genuine (although ridiculously stupid) mistake and we'll get him some more firewood. So off Kenny scoots to the shop, comes back with not only firewood but kindling too, and hands it to the man, who now ended up with more firewood than he started with and Us spending more money than we would have if we'd built our own fire. Plus we woulda got two nights fires outa that one bag. O well, ya live and learn. Kenny will be a bit more careful where he lifts wood from in future. Thankfully though, we managed to spend the whole night in the tent and slept better.
On leaving the park the next day, we learnt about the Californian Condors and the attempts make to keep increasing the population of a bird that was close to extinction in the 80's. They only lay one egg every other year, so this fact along with lead poisoning, (received when the birds, which are vultures, eat dead animals that have been shot with lead containing bullets, which poison and kill them; the task for the volunteers is to educate the hunters of this and encourage them to use alternate bullets) make it a difficult task. So whilst travelling down the coast, we'd seen huge black birds but hadn't known what they were. So now we can tell the difference; turkey vultures have white at the bottom of their wings nearer to their tails, whilst condors have white further up their wings nearer their head. Turns out we only ever saw the turkey vultures apart from when the ranger showed us a condor chick perched on a ledge in the canyon.
On leaving the park, first of all we had a shower, which was amazing (the things you take for granted, like the ability to feel clean and fresh), then exited via Desert View Drive. This drive seemed to be significantly longer than the way we'd entered, especially when a light flashed on the dashboard to say the tire pressure was dangerously low. We stopped at Grand View, which was just as it says, really big and beautiful, then onto Lipan Point. Eventually reach the exit of the park, where we get our National Park picture and after 54miles finally reach a gas station to fill up the tires. I can relax now, well partly. Just another 6-7 hour car journey to Zion.