Day 18: Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Trip
Thursday, October 27.
I woke around midnight and the wind was rocking the camper… I got my jacket on and went out and put down my stabilizer jacks… typically I don’t need them but with this wind I felt much better with them down. I got up around 6 am and felt well rested. The wind was still howling and I managed to heat a pot of water for coffee and instant oatmeal. I noticed one of my neighbor campers was running after his tent which had blown away from him. I went over and hung out with Davey for awhile… he was kind and heated water for my 2nd cup of coffee for me on his Jetboil stove… I’ve got to get one of these for times like this when a conventional propane stove is hard to light/keep lit. When they were ready to go I got some pictures of them with their bikes and then returned to warm up in my camper. Although the temperature hovered around 39 the windchill made it feel below freezing.
Today I am catching up on my trip journal and hope to get a look at some of my photos. After a nice morning that ended in the afternoon I went down to Mexican Hat and ate a Navajo Cheeseburger… a burger that was on fry bread… yum! Then I went to see the rock formation the town is named after - Mexican Hat. I drove up the Moni Dugway, a gravel road in the Bears Ears National Monument. The views were spectacular and the sky a stunning blue. After returning to camp I took a walk along the rim here at Goosenecks State Park and at sunset took many, many photos. It was very pretty. Once again I photographed the crescent moon and it seemed much closer to the distant view of Monument Valley. I turned in for the night when a knock came on the camper door… my neighbors, Chelsea & Vance from Montana had sighted a very slow moving meteor (or maybe a UFO???) that was moving past the crescent moon with a V shaped cone of light shining back towards the moon. It was a very unusual phenomenon. I was very thankful that they knocked on my door.
The vivid blue sky against the red sand rock is always so lovely, I think that's what I miss the most about that area, here in the PNW the skies are grey and flat so often.
