Grand Canyon - Part I

Day 59: Grand Canyon, AZ

Hello from the Grand Canyon! Today’s ride from Cameron was a nice change from recent days as we had cloud cover keeping it cool throughout the ride. My legs felt good today and considering we were on an uphill grade most of the way into the canyon we made excellent time. Our entire group was together at the first water stop before breaking off into groups so that we could enter the Grand Canyon staggered.

My riding group for the day consisted of Anish, Allison, Nick, Seheee and Alex. A few miles from the canyon a group of motorcyclist had passed us and as we approached the “Welcome to the Grand Canyon” sign we saw them stopped alongside the road. We thought this would be an awesome opportunity for a photo and stopped to ask if we could take a photo with them which they happily obliged, posing for a group photo with our small riding group.

After paying our entrance fees at the entrance we headed to the first viewpoint to check out what we had been anticipating for days. It was a rather cloudy day so while the view was not quite as I had imagined it would be I was still in awe at the size of the canyon. After spending about half and hour at the viewpoint Allison, Anish and I decided we would head toward the campground in the Grand Canyon Village with the sky looking like it could pour at any given second. When we reached the village we made a quick stop at Mather Point before continuing on to the village where we found Jon, Mike and Sean sitting at the Grocery store dinning area eating. With it being lunch time I went and bought a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal bar and small bottle of milk to hold me over until the van reached the village. When the van arrived we enjoyed peanut butter and jelly along with numerous other interesting combinations of sandwiches. Sean made an amazing discovery in that you could buy a small cup of hot chocolate for $1.27 and refill it as many times you wanted throughout the day so with it being a cool day we also enjoyed hot chocolate with our lunch.

As more and more of our riders started arriving at the grocery store some laid down to take naps while a few of us began plotting out possible hikes we could take before dinner. After settling on a shorter hike we headed toward the campground with the van to set up our tents in hopes that we would still have time to hike. When we reached the campground we found Mark and his father there waiting for us along with Allison and Mike. Mark had taken a two day hiatus from riding to spend some time with his father. Dr. Landreneau offered to treat the team to pizza for dinner so while we set up camp Mark and his father ran to pick up pizza. There was not enough time to hike before dinner so Zach, Alex and I took a walk up to the grocery store so Alex could get quarters to shower and then stopped at the showers before returning to camp. When we got back to camp Mark and his father were there with many varieties of pizza for us to enjoy. Then knowing our team Mark goes over to a bag and pulls out three cartons of ICE CREAM for dessert! (Thank you Dr. Landreneau for providing us with this awesome meal!) After dinner a group of us sat and talked with Dr. Landreneau before he and Mark left to head back to Tusayan for the night. We then headed to bed with an early hike planned for the morning.