Travel? During a time of COVID-19? Sounds hard, but we stayed safe and did it anyway.

Monday, November 23, 2020:

Waking up at 7 in the morning isn’t too bad, but waking up at 7 in the morning after a weekend of debating and having to wake up at 6 AM? Terrible. Nevertheless, I persisted, having gotten most of my packing done Friday afternoon when I didn’t have classes. The current plan was to drive the entire day and stay at a motel near Vegas, and then drive all of tomorrow too to reach Sedona near the Grand Canyon. After breakfast my dad got back with the rental car and we got to work. It was quite frankly, a lot of work. It took us more than an hour to get everything into the car and to close the house down, especially since we were taking a LOT of food due to COVID and us wanting to be as safe as possible. There might have been too much, but we loaded it all into the rented Nissan Rogue and set off at 10 AM. Considering the original plan had us leaving at like 2 in the afternoon due to debate, my being eliminated early was almost a blessing. We drove till lunch, at which point we hit a rest stop. At that point on our journey there were hardly any stops and exits were spaced out over hours, but I was also finally getting some sunlight, so I was pretty happy. We used the restroom, had lunch, and set off half an hour later. My sister and I had even made a game of trying to sit on the hood of the car, which was fun. My favorite part was honestly the sunlighr, because I could just put my airpods in and bask in the sunlight in the car and listen to music. After a bit we moved onto more local roads and stopped for gas, and then hit up a Starbucks to use the restroom and get coffee. 15 minutes later, it was 3 PM and we were driving again. The drive got really monotonous by the end,not be honest. The sky was amazing though. This far out of Silicon Valley and I could see so many stars in he sky, it was just so clear. It was beautiful and amazing. It took an entire day of driving, but we finally stopped around 7 at our motel for the night, the Best Western Colorado River Inn in Needles, CA. We settled down, unpacked, ate dinner, and retired for the night. I remember just being really creeped out because it had the same small town feel you see in movies right before someone gets murdered or something. I’m a suburban girl, it just wasn’t for me. There was also a 1 hour time difference we didn’t really notice but was kind of confusing, but it didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.

Tuesday, November 24, 2020:

I woke up around 7 today, entangled within the blankets and my sister as we slowly crawled into consciousness. I quickly changed into my clothes for the day and we had a breakfast of roti, hummus, chutney, and some leftover aaloo. We packed up, put our stuff in the car, and hit the road. My sister and I nearly forgot to take our pillowcases off the pillows, and we got some tea, but we were finally off. Less than half an hour later, we were in Arizona! We’ve only been to Arizona once before and it was when I was 8 and we were on our way back from Bryce and Zion Canyons in the middle of summer. This time it was winter, so it was windier and less hot. My mom turned on a podcast about Arizona that we listened to, and it pointed out landmarks, places for us to stop, and general trivia about the grand canyon, which was interesting to listen to. It was called Just Ahead, and used our location to keep up to date on where we were. I learned that the Colorado River flows through Bryce canyon and then down into Zion and then even lower into the Grand Canyon, so we had already seen the first two layers when I was younger. We had even swam in the Colorado River in Zion before it started raining. Based on the podcast, we decided to to take a detour through the historic route 66, which is the oldest route from Chicago to LA. It’s a 90 mile detour that joins up 73 mike’s into highway 40, so it’s only about 20 extra miles. We took Exit 51 to stop at a Safeway and do some groceries for our breakfast in the next few days and to use the restroom and get a coffee. My dad got a tall mocha but because it was Starbucks, that’s the smallest size and it ran out super quickly! I ended up explaining Starbucks sizes to my parents, and what venti and grande are, and we moved into a discussion about some unique business models. My mom has an MBA, so she gave some really interesting explanations about the unique business models of Starbucks, which cannibalizes it’s own stores businesses and has them open every block, and Walmart, which caters to rural audiences and makes sure to keep itself a bit disorganized for certain mindsets. After that we took Exit 53 and turned into Route 66, which we were going to continue on for a while. The podcast pointed out two main stops in between Kingsman and Seligman.

The first was the Hackberry general store. You have to keep your eye out for it on the long road, especially at such high speeds, and it is on the left side of the road. It was really fun, to be honest. It’s an old timey store covered in stickers and with some old gas stations, and there’s an entire junkyard of cars next to and behind it. I had a lot of fun climbing onto and taking photos of all those brutalized and broken classic cars, and there was even a gunshot hole through the window of one! This guy offered to take our photo in front of the store, and the one thing we noticed while my mom was wiping the phone down after he took the photo was that he was carrying a gun openly. It’s definitely not the sort of thing I would see in Silicon Valley! Inside the store there were lots of souvenirs, and we picked up a Route 66 magnet and a little sign. After spending around half an hour playing over there and taking photos, we took off. I think the one sad thing is that I didn’t get to pet the super cute stray cat that was wandering around, because I wasn’t sure how safe it was. Fair warning though, the cars are super dirty, and I was holding wipes in both my hands to make sure they didn’t get dirty.

The second place we stopped at based on the podcast recommendation was the Grand Canyon Caverns. This one was a lot further in and could be found on the right side after quite a bit of signage indicating it. This place we didn’t stop at for as long. The restaurant was closed, but we used the restroom and browsed the souvenir shop. Generally, there are tours every hour of about 45 minutes 220 feet into the caverns and to explore. Because of COVID, they were only taking 20 groups per tour instead of 40-60, but we didn’t end up exploring the caverns because we felt it was a bit unsafe in such an enclosed area. Perhaps if less people were there we might have, but the tour was already near the brim. It looked very interesting though, so I would still recommend it.

From here it was straight going to Segilman, from where we could reconnect to highway 40. We took a quick exit on Exit 123 for lunch. My dad got a burrito, and the rest of us got Subway, and my mom also picked up a couple pieces of pottery at this small shop as a souvenir. However, a lot of the people weren’t wearing masks, which made us a bit weary. A better place to have had lunch would have been the small town of Williams. The podcast, Just Ahead, pointed out three different ways to get to the Grand Canyon, and one of them goes through the small rural town of Williams that is pretty much comprised of three things: motels, wild west themed shops, and restaurants. The subway wasn’t the greatest, but there were some great looking restaurants here that we would have preferred to stop at, including an Italian place, a little Mexican shop, a Dairy Queen, and a couple others. It’s built on the Historic Route 66 and we still explored the town by car, even if we were too full to eat there. It’s not too far from the place where we stopped either, though I will note that the town was full of Trump Pence signs. It got a bit chaotic from there as the podcast told is about Flagstaff and it’s main attraction, the Lowell Observatory, where the planet Pluto was discovered and scientists discovered that the universe was expanding. It was closed that day, and it’s hours were listed as 8 PM – 10:30 PM on alternating days. I wasn’t a huge fan of Flagstaff in general because it was so crowded and commercialized; we could hardly get through because of the traffic. We also got ourselves a bit turned around when trying to get back on the highway and accidentally went 2 miles in the wrong direction before we could take a U turn and get back on trail. I was navigating and it was really hard, though it was also my first time navigating us in such a way.

At a certain point we entered the winding canyon path into Sedona, and it was gorgeous. Rock formations surrounded us and towered over us, layered in dozens of different sandy shades that were a testament to the billions of years of erosion, weathering, and deposition they had undergone. Many were a ripe shade of red that reminded me of the rocks in Death Valley, which I knew was due to high iron oxide content. The trees were yet another dozen different shades of red, yellow, and orange because it was fall, and the leaves were falling. There were a lot of small Native American shops on the sides, and I would recommend stopping at these for any souvenirs instead of at the pottery place we stopped at before. They were cheaper, and straight from the source instead of through a third party supplier. Anyway, we stopped at multiple spots for photos as the evening wound down, of being 4:30 at this point. While we had originally planned to hike a bit in the afternoon, we spent so long driving here and had so much fun that it was already afternoon. I wouldn’t change I though, because it was definitely worth it. We ended up stopping at a small tourist center on Airport road and across from a CVS that was really great because we got a lot of information and they were really helpful. That place was also only a 1 minute drive from the Airport Vista Point, from where we watched the sunset. We were a bit too late to catch the full thing, but we saw the last part and it was really pretty. The sky was painted in pastel shades and the rocks and their striped colors could be seen for miles. One negative was that literally every other tourist in Sedona had the same idea and came to watch the sunset, and a lot of them didn’t wear masks, so we didn’t feel very safe and stuck to ourselves as much as we could. It was worth it, however, though in retrospect, we probably could have done the caverns tour because that would have been less crowded than the Vista Point. That was our last spot for the day, and we left at 5:30 for our hotel, the Sedona Pines Resort. On the drive there through downtown I noted that a lot of restaurants didn’t have outdoor dining options, which wasn’t very COVID safe, so we would probably have to get takeout if we wanted to. The lodge was a bit out of the way, and not in downtown Sedona, but I liked it ultimately. The best part was that we had rented out a little home for a day, kitchen included. My sister and I had to set up a pull out couch, but we are used to that after skiing so much, and 5 minutes later we were lounging. My mom made dinner, we all showered, and we went to bed.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020:

The night before at dinner we had planned out our schedule for the day, which included two hikes. We woke up at 7 AM and got ready for the day, dressing in layers since we knew that even though the sun would beat down on us, it is also very windy. My dad made us some scrambled eggs and veggies, which we had with bread that my mom had cut and packed a few days ago. We did come prepared! After breakfast we loaded ourselves into the car, which was nice and warm compared to the chilly air outside, and set off. Twenty minutes later and we were at the location for our morning hike, the Cathedral Rock Trailhead.

To be honest, this probably was my favorite hike. After parking, which took us a bit, we picked up our day pass from the Red Rock Country ticket machines that would give us parking for a day for only $5, bundled up at set off. We took some walking sticks, but we didn’t actually need them, and they were more of a burden to us than a help. The Cathedral Rock hike took us 2.5 hours, but if you really want to enjoy it and spend some time sitting at the top it would take 3 hours, and 2 hours if you rush and don’t wait at all. I personally loved it because it involved a lot of bouldering and climbing over plain hiking. It was a bit hot, and we shed some of our layers, but it wasn’t burning, and while there were a lot of people without masks, we were able to stay distant from most of them. We hiked, and then at a certain point, we started climbing. I found crevices to out my feet in and hoist myself up, and I used both my hands and legs to go up the incline. There was even a narrow crack that I had fun climbing through as hikers passed each other going up and down. Warning: where you think you should stop hiking, don’t. The trail fades away after a bit and gets a lot harder to follow, but there are rock pile markers that show the trail as you go. Near the top we have to be a bit more wary of the cacti, but they weren’t too hard to avoid. We climbed and hiked and climbed and we still weren’t done until finally, we hit a sign that said “end of trail”. The view from down there where most people stopped hiking was nothing on the view up here. On my left and right were the very bases of two craggy red rock spires that towered above me but were so close. In front and behind me I had clear views if the valleys that went on for what seemed like miles. It was amazing, and there is even more to explore if you want. We got some awesome photos on the side of one of the cliffs, and climbed another to get some sunlight until we were directly in front of and super close to a third, smaller rock spire. I loved it.

After, we ate some granola bars that we had packed and started to hike down. It was easier to go down than up for me, but it was also a lot more dangerous, and involved a lot more sliding down on our butts and on the soles of our shoes. This also made the hiking shoes I was wearing a real asset, and I would definitely recommend hiking shoes for any Grand Canyon area hikes. It was a lot more crowded at that point in the day, it being 10:30 AM at this point, and we had to be a lot more careful to stay distant. Looking back up at where we were, it was kind of awe inspiring to see how high we went, especially since there were multiple places we could have stopped and turned around like others did, but didn’t. We made it to the bottom, loaded ourselves into the car, and went back to the hotel room for lunch. By this time it was noon; we had spent the entire morning hiking. My dad made more eggs for lunch, and we had left over dalia from yesterday’s dinner. We lazed and lounged for a bit while browsing for things to do in the afternoon. We had seen some paragliders, but the tourist center told us that there is no paragliding in Sedona and that those were probably independent parties. We looked at hot air balloons, but those leave in the mornings, not to mention that we had to book a day in advance. Finally, we settled upon another hike. Slowly and lazily, feeling that post lunch fatigue, we loaded ourselves into the car and drove off. We took a detour across the Red Rock route, an easy to drive route that offers some stunning views of the canyon walls up close and their striped patterns. After the detour, we made it to the Devil’s Bridge parking lot.

Finding parking here was hard, and all the websites we consulted told us that it is crowded. It took us two loops of the parking lot to find a spot, and even then, someone had gotten out of her car to try and take it! It was vaguely hypocritical of us to be annoyed just because my mom has done the same thing when we need parking, but we still got a bit annoyed and took the spot. My sister was a bit hesitant to do the hike, because she was tired after the morning hike, but we set off anyway. I have to say that by the end I was exhausted too. Two hikes in a day is too much for us, and it would have been better to do one hike and an activity that was less stressful or energetic. The thing about this hike is that the trailhead can only be accessed by a really rugged all terrain vehicle like a jeep; a simple 4 wheel drive won’t cut it because there are lots of rock layers to get through. There is the possibility of renting an ATV, which I wish we did, but instead we took the second option and hiked. Even when hiking, there are two options: hike across the same road the ATVs use for a mile, or take the more scenic 2 mile route through the trees and desert. The second option is what we took. It was more shades, but it was also really long and we got tired by the time we reached the trailhead, after which we still had a mile to go! We did see some mountain bikers on the trail, which was interesting, especially since one of them looked younger than my 12 year old sister even. Nevertheless we persisted until we reached the trailhead about an hour after we started, at 3:45. One thing to note is that the hike itself is a lot longer than the Cathedral Rock hike, at 3 miles or so, but it is also relatively flat for most of it instead of constantly going upwards or bouldering. You really only ascend upwards near the end, when you have to start climbing rocks to get to the final arch that is seen in all the photos. After some hard work, we reached the top. In my opinion, the view wasn’t as good as the Cathedral Rock, but the picture opportunity is amazing. We had to wait in a socially distant line in the cold of the Arizona mountain evening for nearly half an hour in order to get our chance at a photo on the Devil’s Bridge, a rocky arch with nothing but empty space underneath and towering rock faces behind it. It was cold at this time though, so we grabbed our jackets and gloves, and huddled down to get some rest while in line so we would have energy for the walk back. At one point, someone tried to cut in line and he got shouted down by like three people, including my dad. Nothing bonds people better than standing in line. Finally, we got our chance to take photos, and my dad acted as the photographer, taking some Instagram worthy shots on his phone. It was really gorgeous, to be honest, but it was also really tall and some people were too scared to approach the edge because of how high up we were. Immediately after we started heading back, because it was evening at this point and we didn’t want to be hiking in the dark. Some people were just making their ways up as we headed down and I’m not sure what they were thinking, doing the hike so late. We hiked back on the short road instead of the long hike we had taken there, exhausted, but still got some amazing photos in front of the moon, which was now sitting pretty in the sky. I was tired, and stumbling, and I stubbed my toe like 10 times because I was too tired to lift my feet all the way, protected only by the rubber capped toes of my hiking shoes and the hiking stick that my mom let me borrow near the end. It wasn’t as cold as at the top of the mountain though, and we made it back by 5:15 or so. This hike was definitely longer than the Cathedral Rock hike, at 3-4 hours going quickly, and probably 4-5 when relaxing and taking your time. Also considering the the fact that it was evening instead of the afternoon and that COVID is happening, one should probably reserve a lot more time for photo taking. We finally made it to the car, but the sun had set and it was pretty dark by then. We got in and drove back to the lodge, done for the day. We showered, made pasta for dinner out of the stuff we had packed, and went to bed early. All of us were tired and aching; two hikes in one day was too much, but it was really fun.

Thursday, November 26, 2020:

We woke up early today and started packing, knowing that it was our last day in Sedona. By the evening, we would be staying in the Grand Canyon at the Kachina Lodge. A few days in and we were old hats at packing everything up in their bags and loading them into the car. My dad made the last of the eggs into more scrambled eggs and we dressed warmly, knowing that it would be a lot colder in the Grand Canyon than in Sedona due to how high it was. We stopped at Whole foods to do some grocery shopping, and one thing that we did notice was that a lot more people in there were wearing masks than other stores we had been in, possibly due to the type of clientele. Knowing that the food available inside the canyon wouldn’t be very good and sparsely available, especially for vegetarians, we picked up veggie wraps, chips, and some more snacks for our lunch and our drive over there. We check out, and from there started our two hour journey to the Grand Canyon. We started out in a winding drive out of the canyon that Sedona is in, getting another chance to watch the beautiful fall colors of the trees. After that, we had two choices: take the I-40 to the small town of Tusayon, which is around a 15 minute drive from the entrance to the Grand Canyon and the smallest town in Arizona, according to the Just Ahead podcast, or to take an early exit from the I-40 and go on a scenic drive on highway 180. We sadly missed our chance to take the exit for 180, especially since it is only half an hour longer than the path we took, but I heard it is very beautiful and highly recommended. Nevertheless, we drove on, hammering out our itinerary for the next few days on the drive there, before we stopped in Tusayon an hour and a half later. The town doesn’t have much, but it does boast a huge visitors center for the Grand Canyon and is home to an Imax theater with the longest running movie in existence: The Grand Canyon: Hidden Secrets. It runs every hour starting at 9:30 and was very interesting, for me. We were careful to use antibacterial wipes everywhere in the small, socially distanced theater, already starting to run low on our huge pack of wipes, which was luckily one of two packs. It follows the history of the Grand Canyon and what we know about it all the way to the present day in the style of a nature documentary, with stunning shots of the canyon and the air, and overdramatic narration. It was fun though, and the adjoining gift shop is overpriced, but has some great stuff. We picked up a Christmas ornament for our collection of travel themed ornaments that we’ve been picking up from around the world, and I got a pair of pretty earrings that were feathered and metallic. We bought the stuff, watched the movie, and then after using the restroom, we set off again. This time the drive was short and easy to get to the entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park and then, we were in.

First we stopped at the visitor center and parked our cars in the mostly empty parking lot. It was 1:30 at this point, since we had caught the 12:30 Imax showing, and after some ineffectual driving and backtracking, we parked and took a short walk to a bench along the South rim of the canyon. We wiped it down and sat to eat lunch, our delicious, custom made Whole food wraps and Jalapeno chips for some kick. Someone even asked where we got our delicious looking sandwiches, and whether they were available in the park! After having lunch, we took a short walk to Mather point, an easy to access viewpoint right near the main visitors center, and got our first, proper, unobstructed view of the Grand Canyon. It is, for a lack of better description, grand. It goes on for miles, as far as I can see, and the colorful, striped walls that are made up of dozens of stone types that have been layered on over hundreds of millions of years are dotted by Ponderosa Pine trees. Its grandiose and beautiful and honestly, the best way to truly understand it’s beauty is to see it. Someone there told us a terrifying story of someone climbing over the safety railing and falling to their death, which quite frankly scared me enough to stay far away from even attempting to lean over the railings. After Mather Point we set back to the car and to Kachina Lodge, whoch we have to check into in the El Tovar hotel. It’s so close to the rim that we have some great views of the canyon right from our hotel. We checked in, went to our room, and put our bags down. We went as quick as we could, because we wanted a chance to drive along the Desert View drive, a 23 mile scenic route with some amazing Vista points for watching the sunset. We knew it would be cold, so I layered some tights under my jeans, and bundled up the jackets. We even pulled out our handwarmers for our gloves and pockets, and the thick balaklavas we had gotten for registering for the Turkey Trot, a Thanksgiving run. There are multiple viewpoints along the Desert View drive, but the Just Ahead podcast recommended five main ones. We stopped at two in order to catch the sunset. The nice point about the drive is that it’s to the east of the entire village, and so it isn’t very crowded, unlike other viewpoints.

Our first viewpoint was the Grandview point, when the sun was just starting to set. It offered some great views of the canyon from a different angle, and we even had the opportunity to hike a little into the canyon. One thing I will say is that for the best photos you have to hike a bit downwards and find a good rock area to set up camp on, otherwise the trees get in the way. We spent some time there, and took some photos, but ultimately left. Other people there had already set up camp to watch the sunset, and one couple even had a full on tripod set up, showing that they knew what they were doing with their cameras. We left, and after a really long gap in between viewpoints, we hit the Moran point. This point was really nice, and we got some even better photos over there as we watched the sunset. My mom had a lot of fun playing photographer, and even made me lie down on the ground at one point, but we got some amazing pictures. From this new viewpoint, we could even see some glimpses of the Colorado River, and some of its rapids as it curved its way through the canyon and continued the thousand year process of erosion. My dad took some photos for another family, who explained that their last name was Moran, and that the family photo would be a great pun and image for the Christmas cards, which I found hilarious. After the sunset was done streaking across the sky and we were left with remnants of burnt orange reflecting off of the dark purple clouds, we headed back to the car, feeling the night chill even through our thick layers. By the time we drove to the village it was pitch black outside, the moon shining bright in the cloudy sky and proving most of our light on the dark path. Back at the hotel we unloaded the car and went to the room, where I quickly grabbed the first shower. Something nice about the hotel is they had good toiletries like shampoo, unlike the last lodge in Sedona. The first Best Western also had some nice Argan Oil shampoos I wasn’t afraid to use. After showering we had dinner, which my mom had set up in the instapot before we left for our sunset drive, and we ate the rajuma beans and rice while lazily scrolling through photos on our phones and watching Jurassic World 2. I left for a bit with my mom to pick something up from the vending machine, barefoot because I forgot my flip flops in the car, and then we all settled down for bed after exchanging photos.

Friday, November 27, 2020:

Thanksgiving was almost over, and our trip was winding down. My parents woke up at around 5 in the morning to take a walk and watch the stars, but my sister and I stayed asleep until 6:45, when they woke us up. They went off for their walk while we changed and got ready for the day ahead in thick warm clothes. We were planning on hiking that day, and it was cold, so I wore my thickest tights under my jeans, and a shirt I got for registering for the Turkey Trot, since it was an exercise shirt. After we got ready, my mom came for us and we took a short, less than five minutes walk to El Tovar hotel, where we had breakfast. Because we were early, my dad got us a really nice table at the window that made me feel super posh. There was a guy in the hallway who I thought was my dad at one point, and I gestured to him before realizing that it wasn’t, which was really embarrassing for me. My dad and I both got veggie omelettes with toast and potatoes, my sister ordered waffles, which I thought was weird since she usually dislikes waffles at home, and my mom had an acai bowl. The breakfast was really good, and the potatoes I got with my omelette even involved sweet potatoes too, which I love. After breakfast is when things got a bit chaotic. We walked from El Tovar to our room at the Kachina Lodge, where we got ready to go on our hike. The plan was that the hikers express bus would leave at 9 AM and take us to the start of the South Kaibab trail, but things didnt exactly go as planned. For starters, we weren’t sure where the bus stop was, so we asked the people at the Bright Angel Lodge where it was. It was 8:40 at this point and we were running late already. We rushed to the car and drove as quickly as we could to the backcountry office and parked, getting to the bus stop. We then came to the stunning conclusion that the brochure we had read was wrong. It had said that the last time was 9:00, but the last time was actually 8 AM until December, and the brochures were outdated. Even worse, when we had asked the guy at the desk in the Bright Angel Lodge, he wasn’t sure about the time either. If I could I would give a bad Yelp review, since the outdated information was really inconvenient. We ended up driving to the Visitors center and catching a separate bus on the Orange line to the South Kaibab trailhead, but it wasn’t an express train. We got there anyway, and after using the restroom, we started the hike down into the canyon at 9:45 AM.

One thing to understand about the hikes into the canyon is that they are completely downhill one way and completely uphill the other. It’s a really interesting dichotomy. The way down is hell on the knees, since it is just going down deep into the canyons along the walls, and the way up is the same path, but taking up a lot more energy and almost double the time due to how strenuous it is. As a family, we planned to hit two points: Ooh Aah point, affectionately called Ooh La La point by my family, and the Cedar Ridge point, which is 1.5 miles from the start, before heading up. The hike itself dead incredibly fun. The path is very well made as you start out descending a cliff face and then move deeper into the canyon until you are in the sunlight. It’s really beautiful, to go from viewing the canyons from the top to bring literally inside of it and getting close up views of all the rocks and the rocks faces. Ooh Aah point is clearly marked and sunny, in a corner, with two or three rocks that are easy to climb onto for photos and offer an amazing view of the canyon. After that we continued the hike of a little more than half a mile to Cedar Ridge point. This part of the hike was considerably more beautiful in my opinion, because the rocks had turned a deep red and it was a bit more flat on the way down, with more steps. We were also moving less along the canyon walls down and now straight into the canyon. It was really fun for me, though at this point I had started to walk ahead of my parents. My dad didn’t make it all the way before he turned back, because he was already walking slowly and it hurt his knees. My mom, sister, and I made it all the way down to Cedar Ridge in another half an hour though, meaning that it took us 1 hour to get down. Cedar ridge is a rest stop of sorts, with a bathroom, and rocks across a wide plane that are easy to sit on. My sister and I hoisted ourselves on a rock and ate our snacks in peace while my mom stood in line for the restroom. The thing was that the bathroom wasn’t working, because the service guy was still cleaning it, and so by the time my sister and I finished eating and looking out into the deep red of the canyon and up at the walls above us, the bathroom still wasn’t done, but the line had gotten super long. After five more minutes they finished cleaning, and we were the first to use the three restroom stalls, which was convenient since we knew it was clean. After eating we quickly took some photos and got ready to hike up. This hike was stressful. It was a constant uphill slope and I was quickly starting to sweat and get tired. First I shed my beanie and gloves. Then, by Ooh Aah point I shed my jacket and was just walking in my Turkey Trot shirt. I ended up actually crossing my dad, who was still making his way to the top, and finishing the trail. It was really fun to notice and call out to him when he was still above me, but I ended up passing him because once I start going fast, I don’t stop walking until I’m done. Ultimately, we finished the hike at 12:20, so it took us 2 hours to get up, making for 3 hours overall, including the long break. I would say that’s a good time estimate too because we weren’t going too fast or too slow on our way.

Finished, we too the bus back to the Visitors Center and walked back to our hotel room to use the restroom and make sandwiches for lunch. The rest of us stretched after the hike, and my sister and I got some snacks from the vending machine, hot cheetos to eat with our sandwiches. Sandwiches made and water bottles filled, we took a nice 10 minute walk to some benches outside the Bright Angel Lodge near where the Bright Angel hiking trail starts and ate our lunch together. We even pulled out a can of Fanta that my sister had packed before we left, and finished the shortbread cookies from the vending machine. Quite frankly, after such a long walk, we were hungry. I remember that there was this baby who was absolutely wailing a few benches down, because he was so angry. The sandwiches were really good, I remember, because my mom had made some veggie patties out of leftovers to go with them, and we had some homemade white bean hummus. After lunch we walked into the Bright Angel Lodge and did our check in for the mule ride that we had scheduled the next day. We had to pick up supplies and learn the route to get to the stables, and confirm that we were going. The guy at the desk was really nice about it actually, and showed us a cool trick for hanging our phones from our necks using string. We were still feeling really tired, to be honest, after the morning’s walk, and really lazy. There was also no way that we were taking the shuttles to Hermit’s Trail because we looked at the line and it was more than half an hour of crowded people who were not being very COVID safe. So instead, we got ice cream and hot cocoa. I wanted pretzels too, or nachos, but they were out of cheese and pretzels so I didn’t get either, sadly, and my mom saw someone else eating nachos and started hissing that he had taken our cheese, which was hilarious. The two cups of hot cocoa we got weren’t very good to be honest, and were kind of watered down. The stuff I used to make at school was much better. Even though it was freezing, the ice cream was also great because we sat in the sun along the rim trail and looked out at the Grand Canyon.

At this point it was 4, and we decided to watch the sunset again on the Desert View Drive. Layered down and bundled into the car, we decided to start from the very last point instead of the first few, and after 15 minutes of driving, we got to Navajo point. The coolest part was the elk that we say in the woods on the drive over there. We thought they were horses, originally, but my mom told me and my dad that we were both nuts and figured out that they were elk. They were huge, and we stopped the car on the side to get some good pictures of them. A lot of wild elk had come out at the side of the road to wander in the evening. My mom got a bit too close for our comfort to get some photos, but she was fine, and after that detour we had continued driving. Navajo Point was really quite pretty, to be honest, but we were all cold and went back in pretty quickly. The best part was that from this side of the canyon, we not only had a great view of the watchtower but of the Colorado River, which isn’t visible from other angles of the canyon. It’s beautiful to see it curving and winding its way through the canyon, and its rapids. The second point we stopped at was Lipan point, and we spent quite some time over here watching the sunset. Even more of the Colorado River was visible from this point, and at certain spots 4-5 sections peeked out from the ground. It was also easy to walk through the woods and along the rim to catch more of the canyon. While my parents were taking photos, I stole away the blanket that my mom had wrapped around her and walked off to explore the rim a bit. It really was quite warm under the blanket and I had some fun shuffling along the path and getting some amazing views of the sunset. My sister was really exhausted and had gone to sit in the car, but I stayed until the sun had completely set behind the cliffs and the sky was darkening, and there was no more golden along the canyon walls. I think this point, and Navajo point, were probably my favorites on the Desert View Drive, more than the ones we had seen on the first day in the Grand Canyon. We went back to our rooms and while my parents ordered a veggie dish for us to share from the El Tovar Hotel, we warmed up the leftover rajuma and rice from a day ago and had it. The dish that we got wasn’t very good; it was stuffed mushrooms, but I’ve never been a huge fan of stuffed vegetables or fine dining, which is what El Tover has. However, their apple pie was to die for. It was steaming hot and we had it with vanilla ice cream and it was just amazing, everyone dug in and we finished it first, before we ate anything else. My sister and my mom don’t even like pie but they loved this hot pie. We ended up having the pie the next morning at breakfast too, but once it was cold they didn’t like it as much, so it was just the hot cold dichotomy that they loved. Dinner done, we caught the last part of the Doctor Strange movie on the TV and went to bed.

Saturday, November 28, 2020:

We had done a lot of packing yesterday evening, but seeing as how we would be driving back from Arizona today, we finished our packing in the morning and loaded everything into the car. We were pros at this point, having been doing it for a week, and it went way quicker than before. That done, we bundled up and went to the El Tovar hotel for breakfast again. I had an omelette again, but it wasn’t as good as yesterday’s because the vegetables weren’t the same. My mom had an avocado toast this time, which was really good, since we all had a bite, and we ordered some of the apple pie from yesterday. It wasn’t as good, and we had to warm it up, but I really enjoyed it. I felt a bit guilty about eating so much of the pie, but as my parents said, I’m still young and can only have sweets calorie free for so long! I don’t even have a sweet tooth anyway. After breakfast we had one activity for the day, which was a scheduled mule ride. We had to drive into an area with signs that told us it was closed off to everyone except shuttle buses, but we drove in anyway and took a turn before the South Kaibob trail we had gone to just the day before in order to get to the mule ranch. According to our trail guide, Olivia, the mule rides are usually booked full almost a year in advance, but thanks to COVID, the demand has gone down a lot, and they’ve had to shorten the number of people on the tours, so there were hardly 10-15 people overall split into two groups. Our tour guide, Olivia, was really nice, and she was a great speaker who told us a lot of interesting things about the canyon. Outside of giving canyon tours, she was a combat engineer who worked with explosives for the army, which I thought was a really cool job. We all got assigned mules and got on after getting instructions on how to ride them, and by 9:30 we were off. My sister and I have both been to horse-back riding camp over summer, so we were pretty experienced, and the only new thing was that we needed whips, or “motivators” as they were called, to get our mules to move. Once we were all seated, we set off on a path across the canyon rim. I think the best part was that my watch registered the mule’s steps as my steps, and so I got my 10,000 steps super easily, but the narration was also interesting. We learned a lot about the ancestral Pueblan tribes that used to live in the canyon, and how there are tribes from the Navajo Nation still living in areas of the canyon that are outside of the park. We also learned a lot about how the rangers have to set controlled burns in the forests in the canyon to keep them under control, and we walked through a portion of the burnt forest. There was a lot more that Olivia talked about too, and it was interesting. Finally, at the end, we got photos taken by her, individual and group shots, and we headed back to the stables almost two hours later. After sitting still on my mule, Hondo, for so long, I was really sore and I waddled a bit when walking back to the car, to be honest. We were all seen off by the main wrangler, who had a Southern accent so strong I had only seen it in movies, but she was still nice. When we were getting in the car, I also saw a lot of elks sitting right outside of the stables. It was an entire herd, in fact, just lounging in the shade of the trees, and we got some good photos of them that time too.

We had already packed up and checked out before going for the mule ride, so after loading ourselves into the car and taking a quick stop at the visitors center to use the restroom, we drove out of the park. I remember that it was so much more crowded today than any other day because it was a Saturday, and a lot more tourists and people from local areas were here than during the weekdays. It’s a pattern we’ve seen during the times we visited Universal Studios in Orlando and Disneyland in LA, that it is always busier on the weekend than during the weekdays. We weren’t very hungry still because we all had such a big breakfast, so we skipped over the town of Tusayon and drove to Williams, the small old west style town we had driven through before. There were a few restaurants in there, but we ended up stopping at the Station 66 Italian Bistro and ordered a lot of cheese dishes. To be honest, mac and cheese, a veggie pizza, and cheesy bread were probably not the best opportunities, but we’re vegetarian and most of their dishes had cheese anyway. We were stuffed by the end, that was for sure, and I came to the stunning conclusion that I actually prefer boxed Annies mac and cheese to the fancy breadcrumb stuff in restaurants. The town was comfortable, and we sat in the sun and had fun. The only downside I would say is that the restaurant didn’t seem to be very COVID safe at the time, since they weren’t wiping down menus and were only wiping down the tables and not the benches after people were done with them. Nevertheless, we wiped it up on our own and stayed safe. After this, things got chaotic. We first got a cold venti mocha from the Starbucks inside a Safeway that was a few blocks down, but the barista was so slow. I mean, so slow. Finally, finally she was done, and we chugged the coffee in like 10 minutes before setting off. I closed my eyes, turned on my music, and pretty much drifted off to sleep in the sunlight. I think it was around 3 pm, when we had stopped to get gas, that my parents started discussing the possibility of just driving straight home. At the current rate we would reach the hotel by around 5, which would give us enough time to get home by midnight. All of us were missing our beds and wanted a day off. We decided to keep driving and then decide, and ultimately, we drove straight past the town we would have stayed in and then cancelled the reservation. On the way there, we took a couple more stops, especially to the restroom, and at one of the stops, I got some great pictures of the sunset. It was incredibly colorful, painting itself across the sky, and as I plugged my airpods in and watched, the colors changed before my very eyes. It got dark and we stopped at a Habit Burger and Grill for dinner, which we scarfed down while my mom got gas, and then at a Starbucks drive through ten minutes later for a hot mocha. One odd thing about Starbucks mochas is that when hot, they have enough milk to put me to sleep, because it really is coffee flavored hot milk at the core. I took a few sips, gave it back, and pretty much fell asleep. I think at one point I took my earbuds out so I could properly sleep, and by then it was midnight. We were home.

I really enjoyed my trip to the Grand Canyon overall. Regardless of COVID, we were able to have fun and travel in a safe way, and bond with each other. I saw some amazing sights and hiked and saw beautiful things, all of it in a safe way that at this point has become second nature. The trip was definitely worth it all.