Grand Canyon!

October 22, 2015

Valle -> Grand Canyon: 32 miles

Started riding late in the morning because it was so cold!! We only had 30 miles to the Grand Canyon so it wasn't going to be a bad day at all. It was very sunny until mile 15 and it started raining...once again we were freezing. It was rainy and cloudy the whole rest of the day. Finally we got to the little town just before the canyon and sprinted to McDonalds for warmth and a coffee. We still had 6 miles to get into the park and I did not want to keep biking in the rain :( of course we kept going...we wanted to see the Grand Canyon! 

The second we got there we reserved a camp spot and went straight to a view point at the canyon. AMAZING, HUGE, UNBELIEVABLE... what else can I say? It was beautiful! What everyone says is true, pictures don't do it justice...you have to see it for yourself! 

We stayed in a hiker/biker campground area, which just means you will be camping next to other people and sharing fire pits, etc. We were totally okay with that, as you can imagine we only have each other to talk to all day :P We ended up camping next to a couple that is touring from Quebec to Florida. They were awesome & showed us up on making a fire haha we learned a few things.

It's Elk mating season

October 23, 2015

Grand Canyon -> Desert View: 24 miles

We rode around and checkout the Village in the park. There was an awesome art gallery there! Joe and I were also debating on wether or not we should hike down the canyon. We really wanted to but it would have taken hours and we would have had to camp at the bottom of the canyon and hike up the next day. You need a permit to camp down there and there was a waiting list until Sunday night! (2 days away) Clearly a hike wasn't in our plans. 

Oh well, we started biking around the canyon, closer to where we wanted to camp for the night. Joe and I want to check out the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and to do that we actually have to bike out of the national park about 140 miles and then we go back into it. Anyways the plan for this day was to bike around the rim, check out the many different view points, and bike just outside of the park. There's a bike path that goes along the canyon and it is awesome!! So many cool views and somehow each curve you go around there's a view so different from the last.

Right when we started biking on the path I realized my camera was acting funny. It wasn't working at all, I couldn't focus, I couldn't change the shutter or aperture. Joe and I tried everything, but the drive mechanism in the lens stopped working :( no more pictures...we got 3000 miles and of course my camera breaks in the GRAND CANYON! Out of all places...I understand we can take pictures with our phones, but it's not the same for me. We won't be going by a camera store until Las Vegas. Before that we are going to anther beautiful place, Zion National Park. It makes me sad that I won't have my camera for that, but I'll survive. 

So, like I said, we were going to bike just outside of the park. In the park, we're only allowed to camp in designated areas and there were none towards this end of the park. However, you ARE allowed to camp just outside of the park. We ended up camping where we weren't supposed to IN the Grand Canyon park. Not on purpose though, we though we were out of the park already. Oh well! We didn't get in trouble and it was fun :)