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January 11
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Saturday, January 12, 2013 We got up about 6:30 and ate breakfast at the hotel. We packed up and left by 7:45. What a nice day! For the most part... We encountered some snow flurries near Flagstaff. And we stopped in Flagstaff for lunch at Busters. Lunch was soup and spinach salad for Carl, California sandwich with fruit for me. After lunch, we drove around campus (Northern Arizona University) a little, since we were right next to one of the campus entrances. Man has it changed since I went there! Of course, that was over four decades ago... So, we got back on the road, turning north at Williams, instead of taking our usual route north from Flagstaff. We pulled through the main entrance to Grand Canyon by 3:50. We were only a couple minutes before check in time, so they let us go ahead and check in to Bright Angel Lodge. While in the lobby, we stopped at the Phantom Ranch desk and confirmed our Phantom arrangements. We're still assigned to the bunk houses. No upgrades to cabins are available yet. We will need to check that status each day at Phantom. After unloading the car, we walked over to the Bright Angel Trailhead and looked over the top of the trail. It was hard packed snow as far as we could see from there. It looks like we'll be wearing our crampons for the first mile or more. So, we went back to our cabin (which also has packed snow on the sidewalk), added a couple of layers of clothing and headed for the bar for beers and to access email (internet access was in the lobby area only). Football playoffs are going on, so the bar soon filled up and got a bit excited... Denver lost in double overtime. The people at the next table over had just hiked up from Phantom Ranch today, so we chatted with them for a while. The oldest man in their group was also from the Denver area, so it made the game more exciting. Dinner tonight was in the Bright Angel Restaurant. Carl had fajitas and I had trout with green beans. I wish we were hungrier - the servings were huge!!! Then we went back to our cabin for the evening and watched Paul on TV.... |