First Month Completed, Visitors, and Adventures

This past Wednesday I completed my first month of volunteer service at the Grand Canyon National Park Mather campground.  I have logged 144 hours as a volunteer.  It's been fun.  I've had visitors. And I've had some fun adventures.

My Little Visitors - Last week I was visited by Billie and our two grandsons, Elliot and Ian.  The boys had a great time thanks to Billie.  They played at the campground, saw some Elk, and visited the south rim.  Billie also took them to the iMax theater in Tusayan to see the movie about the Grand Canyon

Ian and Elliot

history.  They both enjoyed it and picked out stuffed animals to take home.

It was fun having them out and they both had a blast.  We made a fire one evening and they roasted marshmallows and made S'mores.

Billie came out this week and we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary.  I made reservations at the El Tovar lodge dinning room and we had a very nice dinner.  After dinner we enjoyed a walk to the rim to see the sunset.  It was a great evening.  I'm very fortunate to have her in my life.

Adventures -  I adventured out this past week with some of the Rangers to the Grand Falls on the Little Colorado river.  The falls are located northeast of Flagstaff in the Navajo Nation.  We drove out on Navajo 70 for about 9 miles to the Little Colorado River.  There's a concrete damn bridge that you can drive across when weather permits.  We drove to the other side, but with monsoon storms in the distance decided to cross back to the safe side.

Grand Falls

At 185 feet tall it is taller than Niagara Falls.  During heavy monsoon rains and spring snow melts the falls runs with heavy dark chocolate colored waters.

The falls were formed from the Merriam Crater.  Lava flowed from the crater creating the falls and the Little Colorado river rerouted over the falls.  It was really spectacular to see even though the river wasn't flowing at a heavy pace.

With monsoon rain clouds in the distance we thought it was best to start heading back.  The road is a dirt road accessible by 4 wheel drive.  If you were out there in a heavy rain it could get pretty dicey.

This Thursday I visited the backcountry office to see about getting a permit for a trip down to Indian Gardens with my friend Jerry.  Jerry is coming out after his cycling trip the second week of August.  I was concerned that there wouldn't be any permits, but the Ranger was able to get us 2 nights at Indian Gardens campground on the 14th and 15th of August.  We plan on hiking out on the Tonto east and Tonto west trails to check out what we can find.  We'll plan one day hike out to Plateau Point.  Photos will come in the blog entry.

WH Chocolates

White House Visitor - Earlier this week the lead Ranger received a call that a White House staffer was coming in and needed a campsite.  She was able to reserve him a site. Around 7:30 he arrived and I greeted him as I do all of the incoming guests.  We talked for a few minutes and he checked in to his site and was off.  The next morning he stopped by the kiosk and gave me a White House box of chocolates.  He thanked me for my help and we shook hands.  He hopped in his car and was off.  Now what to do with the chocolates??