Day 16 – Grand Canyon National Park - South Rim

Woke up this morning and older gents (Darby, Tim, and Philip) had left to go on a hike this morning. The young bucks (Isaac and Navad) were up and break down camp. Having a full-on camper, you don’t realize how convenient it is. I made some coffee for Anna and me. She got out of bed about 30 minutes later. We said our goodbyes to the guys and made our way into town first to grab some grub. We stopped at the Foodie Club and I grab a BLT and Mama got her a salad.

We drove into the park and stopped at every possible scenic view and side road. The scenic drive, which was called the Desert View Drive, was around 25 miles long. We both opted to skip a few of the beginning pull-offs, as they were packed with people. We figured the further in the park, the fewer the people. We were right.

We took plenty of pictures and took a hike about halfway into the park. It was a dirt road and we weren’t on it but about twenty feet when we started noticing animal tracks. Big hoof marks dotted the landscape. No matter where we turned or looked, they were everywhere. I do know that I have ever seen that amount of elk and deer tracks every in one spot. We roamed and followed some of the winding paths through trees and brush hoping to run across one. For some reason, I think they have a better sense than we do. Even though we didn’t see any, we had a blast and felt like we ran with the herd.

Before heading out of the park, we stopped at the park’s Watchtower. It is a pretty cool tower structure perched on top of a cliff built back in the 1800s. Very cool and glad we stopped to look at it. As we were leaving the parking lot, Anna saw a few deer bedding near the road. It was a mother and her fawn, along with another adult doe. It is amazing how they blend into the naturescape!`

Left the park around 3pm and headed back towards I-40.