El Gran Cañon

Part 2- Grand Canyon, I miss you.

Let's start where I left off with my boots. So to skip the suspense, my boots dried. Thank you dry heat, thank you newspaper, and thank you hotel AC.

We wake up early in the morning to a nice morning chill. Our one hour drive from Flagstaff was so peaceful and easy that it made the morning that much beautiful. We passed more crazy signs, such as, "managed fire" "watch out for bulls"? Lol, yeah, that one happened. As we got closer to the canyon, the roads and forest were consumed with a thin veil of smoke from the managed fire, it was a pretty cool sight to see.

Well, we get to the Grand Canyon, we stretch, we apply sunscreen and double check we have everything, and of course we don't. Marce forgot  the camera's battery we had charged the previous night. Oy vey. Thankfully the one we had was used very little the day before.

After a few "I'm sorries", we finally managed to get to the entrance of the trail. I can't explain what I felt when I saw it. It was big, definitely big. Haha. But the thing I loved so much about It was the fact that it was so quiet, even with all the people arriving and "ooooing" and "aaaahing". It was something out of this world. You get there and the pictures you see from your 6th grade geography book can't even compare to the vast beauty and intimidating presence. The Grand Canyon was alive. It was a breathing living place.

We start walking down and the first thing we see is poop. Mule poop everywhere. Apparently, you can ride a mule up and down the Grand Canyon. So we carefully gave each other heads up when there was poop. We even got a chance to see a mule train. Poor things, I hope they are not being over worked.

Anywho, before I continue, I want to make note that we started at 8 in the morning. The recommended time to hike the Grand Canyon is before 10 am and 4 pm. The mister thought that it wouldn't be so bad and later on I almost killed him bc of this genius idea.

Ok, so we are barely down the one mile marker and I'm kinda freaking out bc I was feeling a little sweaty and a little tired bc gravity was being a little bitch as we were walking down the somewhat steep trail. We get to the rest house and refill our water bottles and these cute squirrels come out of nowhere and started begging for food. They literally would  put both of their front paws to beg. One of them even took a peek inside our backpacks. So cute. So we continue our hike and passed by this volunteer ranger. He stopped and asked us how we were doing and how far we are thinking of going. The mister tells him that our plan was originally to go down 6 miles. Yeah, you read that right. The volunteer says that it's not a good idea and hubby decides that we at least have to go down 4.5 miles to the Japanese garden. The volunteer also tells us that we might be pushing it. He let us proceed but told us to keep hiking with caution.

We continue down, and as we are walking down, I couldn't help but notice half a dozen people just drenched in sweat, their cheeks flushed red, chugging water like it was a matter of life or death. The people walking up were total zombies, you could see it in their eyes that the only that mattered to them was seeing that exit. Some people still had some energy left to smile at us and say hi. That gave me a bit of relief but I was still shaking in my boots. I followed my mister and I just watched him with so much happiness bc he was happy. He was pumped up with life. He'd stop and take pictures, remind me to drink water and just go "wow, look at this." every minute he could. He was my water. As we got closer to the Japanese garden, we were pretty much on our own. Every five minutes we'd probably see someone hiking up. On one occasion we heard a clink and clank and clink and clank. We looked back and we see this older man, probably closer to 55-60 just strolling down with a backpack. It almost seemed like he was in a hurry. I asked him where he was headed and the next response pretty much knocked the wind out of me. He said, "On my way down to my kayak. Just went up to get some more beer." As he patted his backpack like he had precious treasure inside and smiled like a five year old.

The man hiked up just to go get some more beer to bring down to his kayak...by the river...like ten more miles down. Jesus H. Christ.

Mister and I just looked at each other in awe and almost ashamed bc here we are, a couple of twenty year olds, and a little scared of the hike coming back up. So we finally arrive to our destination and are welcomed with shade and restrooms. Although at this point, we are sweating so much that we really don't need to use the restroom. We are cliff bars, elevated our legs, and filled up our camelbacks. More of the furry critters come to beg for food and they provided some amusement. Thirty minutes passed and as soon as I felt relaxed the husband says "ok, let's go back up."

 It wasn't even thirty minutes from our rest that I told him that we needed to stop. I felt fatigued. The sun was beaming down so hard that I felt like skin might just slide off my bones. My body was reaching medium well, the skin felt charred and my insides felt grey. All the while my husband had energy left for the both of us. So we start up again and my husband looks back at me and continues to talk to me. I couldn't even think of responding back bc I was using all of my concentration on telling my feet to keep walking up. One time as we were about to pass by some people coming down, he said "Let's scare them and act like we are so tired." Act?!?! Act?!? I almost felt like crying for some added drama, but even if I wanted to, there wasn't enough water from my body. I've never loved drinking water so much in my life like I did that day. I kept my water tube in my mouth pretty much all the way till the end.

 I think I made him stop ten more times, one of them being for like forty minutes. But not wanting to disappoint myself, I gave myself a pep talk and told myself that if that old man can do it, so can I. So we restart the hiking with the intention to not stop. I kept my arms at my waist (that definitely helped me breathe better and felt less tired), and the fact that I knew a burger and two beers will be waiting for me that night were definitely my motivators.

Ok, ok, now I know that I probably made this all sound scary. It wasn't. It was just a small challenge and a wake up call to the fact that I'm quite out of shape. If you ask me if I'd do it again, I'd say yes in a heartbeat. I want to go back in the same conditions. My surrounding was breathtaking, my companion was my best friend and my motivator, and the pain in the end was sweet and a reminder of the day I was able to experience.

We get to the top as we held each other hands. We decided to stay and watch the sunset. Finally, we drive back home and we witnessed a forest on fire in the middle of the night. It was beautiful and frightening at the same time. An image that will forever be in my head. So I didn't get my beer. I almost didn't want to eat my burger. I just wanted to fall asleep so that I could dream about that canyon. The beautiful Grand Canyon.

Up sh*t creek...

West coast trip- let's start with our airplane ride. We didn't check in on time so that the mister and I could sit together, so we ended up sitting on opposite aisle seats. It was ok because I sat next to a sweet lady who became a friend by the end of the flight. She was on her way to a convention and was her second time going. She was recommending all these places to go in Sedona. I truly appreciated her because she made the airplane ride not seem so scary and long. Oh, and the hubby had a woman that was breast feeding her kid next to him, so his trip was alright too. Lol.

So we get to Phoenix and boy was it hot. I mean, even in the shadow I felt like we were standing in an oven. On our way to Sedona in our "ok" rental car we were fascinated by the mountains and the beautiful landscape of Arizona. The road signs were also something new and hilarious, i.e, "Watch for falling rocks", "Please turn off AC and roll down windows to prevent overheating of the car", "Watch out for wildlife". Ok, maybe they weren't hilarious, just a little scary.

We get to Sedona and our jaws were on the floor. I felt like we were in some beautiful painting. The colors, the height, the majesty of it all. The mister parked the car for our first hiking experience. It was Bell Rock and even this seemed somewhat intimidating. We weren't the only ones, there were lots of families and couples just taking what seemed like a normal hike to them.

See, before coming to this trip we made sure to come prepared with our hiking shoes, socks, proper clothing attire, even our "safari" hats like mama Tarullo calls them. But these families came with normal clothing, sandals, and no hats. Oh well, better to be over prepared than under. Five minutes into our hiking I was sweating, but in my defense it was hot. 90 degrees feeling like 100. What shocked me so much as we were just halfway was the amount of children hiking! I mean, they were way further up than us and just scaling. They damn well put me to shame.

On our next stop, we decided to do a few sightseeing spots and then stopped at this park that had a nice little creek. This creek was so serene and refreshing. It's always comes as a shock to me when I can see at the bottom of any type of body of water. (Thanks for traumatizing me Chicago river.) We walked to this place where people were just swimming and relaxing by the side of the creek with their dogs. On this little part of our trip two things happened, good and bad. The mister and I dropped our stuff and crossed the creek on this fallen tree trunk. I was so proud of myself because I crossed it faster than him with my monkey skills. As i was on the other side, I decided to take off my shoes and dip my feet in. It was cold. It was so cold and I couldn't believe people were swimming in it but after giving it a minute or two I was able to get used to it. I was in Ariel mode. Haha! Now on to the bad part- well see the thing is, I did not know how to get back to the other side because I was not able to do the same thing I did coming over. So I thought that walking across the creek in the water would be fine. Oh, silly me. First mistake, I didn't think it through. Second mistake, was the way I decided to get in the water and that was by jumping down on to a rock that was in the creek. I'm sure you know what happened next. With one hand holding on to my huge hiking boots and socks and the other hand trying to support myself as I jumped down, I touched the rock in the creek with my toe and felt the slickness to it, it was the worst "oh shit" moment of my life. As I was submerged halfway in the creek, a boot fell out of my hand, and I looked at it float by past me. It was my second "oh shit" moment. As I was rapidly trying get up, I fall down a second time but this time the hand that had the other shoe went down with me as I instinctively tried to prevent myself from falling on my ass. Third "oh shit" moment. I was finally able to get up and get my shoe, with a sigh of relief, I look to where the husband was only to see him still sitting down and shaking his head. I screamed, "you should've at least taken a picture!" As I walk out of the creek, the couple that was swimming on the side were smiling as they asked me if I was ok. I said yeah but my boots weren't.

Walking towards my husband as he was still shaking his head made me feel like I was back to being 7 years old and in trouble with my parents. But I really was in trouble. See, the next day we were supposed to hike the Grand Canyon and my waterproof boots felt like they were water beds for my tiny feet. I was so scared that this would ruin our trip. So I squeezed (have you ever tried squeezing hiking boots? it's impossible) pressing, shaking and shaking and shaking the boots but it seemed like it was to no avail. I searched up how to dry shoes as fast as possible and I found out that stuffing newspapers inside was one of them. So throughout the rest of the day I dangled my shoes out the window, hoping the dry heat from Arizona would help me, and changing the newspaper every hour. That same day my husband said we were to hike up a mountain. Trying to remember what other shoes I brought I thought of my white squeaky clean sneakers, which I forgot to bring socks for, and flip flops. Picked the sneakers and the husband let me borrow a pair of black socks. (That is why in some of the pictures I posted on facebook show me wearing white shoes with black socks.) I hope no one of you caught that but if you did now you know that I have a good explanation for my fashion faux pas.

So, to close out this long ass post of our FIRST day from our west coast trip, we hiked that mountain with my now slightly orange white sneakers, I kissed my Prince Charming at the top of the world, drove to Flagstaff in plain darkness through a mountain at 25 mph, boots outside the window, and ended the night with a much needed burger and beer.