Grainger

6/29/2018

Our alarms woke us up at 3:45, we packed up our stuff, jumped in the river for one last time, ate breakfast, and started walking. We paid a little bit to hire horses to carry our packs up, so we only had to carry our daypacks! We dropped our heavy packs off at the ranger station, and were off. It was still very early (around 5:15) when we left, so it was a great temperature to hike in.

We had some of the same amazing view from the way in, but in reverse. We also had a fun dog join us at the halfway point for the remainder of the hike. We named her Grainger, and she was the cutest. Once we got to the top of the canyon Grainger left us, and we hung out in the shade while we waited for our bags to be delivered via horse.

Once our bags were delivered we headed towards the Grand Canyon, with two important stops. The first stop was back to the motel we stayed at before Havasupai. Why would we go back there? Because they have a pool. We hopped in for a quick rinse on our way to burgers, fries and shakes. After replenishing our energy, we said goodbye to Tim and Elyse for a few hours, as they headed into Flagstaff and us to a campsite.

Once got situated we reorganized our lives to car camping mode from backpacking mode. The campground has both showers and laundry, so we took advantage of the showers tonight. I forget if I mentioned that we both have poison oak, but the showers were super helpful to make sure we dry out our skin.

We had ingredients for chicken salads, and ate those very quickly before calling it a night. There is a fire ban here, but we aren’t too concerned because it’s still really hot and we went to bed early.

Having this car camping spot was crucial for our mental health. It makes it so much easier to reorganize things by basically taking everything out of the car to see everything. Additionally, having real showers and laundry machines came at the right time.