To The South Rim

We were back in the desert again. It was still a bit warm when we got up this morning and very dry, even though we were on the edge of Lake Powell. After an early breakfast it was off to the showers. They sure felt good, 15 minutes for $2.00, pretty much all the water you could want. A short trip to the RV dump station to drain and fill tanks and we were on our way...but not for long.

Last evening, we decided that we would continue on to Grand Canyon today, a day early. As a precaution, we logged into recreation.gov, found there were few campsites still available for tonight, so we reserved one. This turned out to be a very good precaution. When we got to the campground today, there were no RV sites available.

As we were coming into Page yesterday, we noticed a Walmart on the road in. I needed to get some propane bottles for our little grill, so we decided to stop. As we passed by this morning, we also noticed that they had an express lube and tire service. Speedy was overdue for an oil change. First to the lube station and then to the store and now Speedy has fresh oil and a new filter, I have propane and a new watch and Ellen has a new long sleeve T-shirt.

We were back onto Rt. 89 south heading to the Grand Canyon. It was about 80 miles before we would reach the turn-off to the South Rim entrance road and then another 50 miles to the Mather campground. It was to be a fairly long drive through the desert. As lunch time approached, we were near the turn-off to Tuba City, a Hopi enclave within the Navajo Reservation. We'd stopped there for lunch on our previous drive to the Grand Canyon. There is a little cafe, the Tuuvi Cafe, at which we had an excellent local stew and fry bread. It was worth another try. We weren't disappointed. The cafe seems to cater mostly to locals, always a good sign. Tuba City isn't really on the tourist routes. We only went through it last time because we decided to take a back road route to Grand Canyon from Canyon de Chelly. The cafe is in the Tuuvi Travel Plaza, primarily a gas station, but it is worth a visit.

Stomachs filled, both ours and Speedy's, we continued on to the east entrance of Grand Canyon National Park. After cursory stops at the Desert View Visitor Center and the Tusayan Museum, we pulled into the campground and tonight's site. We'd hoped the one we have booked for the next four days, might have become available, but no such luck, so we will be moving in the morning.

As it was still mid-afternoon, we unloaded the bicycles and rode to Grand Canyon Village and the big views from the South Rim. Not only was the village overrun with tourists, it was also overrun with wildlife. This is not a widlerness area. It has lots of roads,a railroad, several lodges and many buildings. We rode past a small herd of elk, resting in the front yard of a park residential building and a Mule Deer doe and her two fawns on a patch of grass between the railroad station and the lodges.

After our canyon and wildlife viewing, and a search for a bird list (we weren't able to find one in print, but were able to download one from the park website and print it out at the park's library), we rode back to camp, had dinner, sat down to write this entry and called it a day.

Tomorrow, we meet our friends.