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Monday, October 10, 2016
We slept in a bit this morning as we don't have far to go... We packed up after breakfast and left for the North Rim.
We arrived at the rim a little before 11. I checked at the front desk and our room was already ready, so we moved bags and stuff in.
It's a nice room. It's not in a cabin like we had, but one of the “motel” rooms. It's larger than the regular rooms at the South Rim, yet smaller than most hotel rooms. We have a nice view of the tall pines. Our room is on the corner so can get a nice breeze through the room if we want.
After getting settled, we walked down to the main lodge and had lunch at the main dining room. I tried to get reservations for dinner tonight, but they now take those up to six months in advance!!! The earliest available seating time is 8:45!!! Well, how about tomorrow? Well, there's one at 4:45, otherwise, it's 8:15. Same story for the rest of the week. I guess we'll pass on dinner in the dining room this trip... It's just as well, since lunch was a bit more than we wanted...
We spent the afternoon wandering the paths and trails near the lodge, including Bright Angel Point Trail, a very short trail from the lodge to a point looking into the main canyon. It's one of the wheelchair accessible trails. And we stopped several times for pictures and to rest, especially Carl's leg. But it's been doing so well this trip, I'm pleased with the progress. I think he is also.
The photo on the left shows a view of the Canyon from a trail just below the main lodge with some autumn foliage in the foreground. The center photo shows one of the small overlooks just below the main lodge with some tourists enjoying the view. The photo on the right shows the main lodge from that viewpoint.
The photos on the left and right above show some of the view from the Bright Angel Point Trail. The center photo is from one of the small overlooks just below the main lodge.
After walks, we drove down to the General Store to pick up a couple of small items and to use the one wifi source on this side of the park. I checked email and checked in on Facebook. No more outside contact for me until Friday!
Then we drove back to the room to decide on dinner. There's not a lot of choices. Then we walked back to the lodge and checked out the Gift Shop. It's small, but adequate and better supplied in souvenirs and such things than the General Store. The General Store was a bit disappointing as we remembered the large General Store on the South Rim. This one was mainly for the people in the campground...
After talking it over and checking the few options available for dinner, we wound up getting a BBQ Pork sandwich (split as it was huge) and a small cup of potato salad at the Deli and taking them over to the Saloon where we ate the food and drank some delicious Prickly Pear Margaritas. Yum!
I'm glad we remembered to bring along the flashlights as it was a bit dark returning to the room after dark. As of 7:30, the rest of the evening is unstructured. No TV, no wifi, now what????