Friday we said goodbye to Utah and headed for the Grand Canyon. Our drive took us through the Painted Desert which was very unimpressive, I expected some colors For the last half of the drive there were Navaho Indian stands selling jewelry every few hundred yards. None of them can make any money at it. At our lunch stop we bought some roasted piñon nuts from a local. They were sort of smokey and very crunchy, not at all like the pine nuts we buy at the stor...

Tuesday was a short day. We took the opportunity to drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Most visitors never get to this side of the canyon. Since I haven't yet seen the more popular side, I don't have a basis for comparison though this side was pretty spectacular. We were at Point Imperial, the highest point anywhere at the canyon at 8800 feet. It was seven miles across to the Colorado River. That is seven horizontal miles, no vertical component. ...

We learned our lesson from yesterday so today we started out earlier to hike up an 860 cliff. Now this hike was rated easy to moderate with a few strenuous parts. Hah!!! At times it felt like we were going straight up the 800 feet over huge boulders on a narrow trail where one mis-step would send you tumbling over the edge. With that said, it was a pretty climb and the view from the top was pretty amazing, of course then we had to go down over those same bould...