The North Rim of the Grand Canyon

We had quite the adventures as we traveled up to Idaho and back this summer. There were several times when Todd and I looked at each other and just had to laugh with all the things that went NOT according to plan, and anyone who knows me well knows I don't take deviations from my plans very well.

We decided to break the 16+ hour drive up to Idaho into a couple of days and took a detour to visit the Grand Canyon and camp there for the night. Neither Todd or I have ever been, and after living in Arizona for over four years, we thought we were overdue.

Lesson learned: don't take young kids to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon if you have recurring nightmares where you watch helplessly as your kids fall off the edge of a tall cliff, like I do. Yes, there were lots of fences and railings, but there were still gaps where an adventurous kid could wiggle through. I was a nervous wreck the whole time, but I tried to conceal it so I didn't pass on my unease to the kids.

The view was amazing, when I wasn't watching the twins like a hawk. You really can't comprehend how big it is until you're right on the edge.

Also, make sure if you reserve a campsite, that you reserve it for the right month. We thought we had a campsite all ready for us, then got there and realized we had it reserved for August instead of July. Oops. That slipped past both me and Todd. So we ended up camping two miles up the side of a dirt road right outside of the park, with no water or facilities. We had to teach all four kids how to go to the bathroom in the woods. 

The plus side, when you're camping out in the middle of nowhere, you don't have to worry about your loud kids keeping people up at night or waking them up early in the morning. The downside, there's no one to hear you scream when you're visited by a pack of coyotes in the middle of the night (yes, that did happen to us) and not many people around to help out when you wake up in the morning and your van has a flat tire (yep, that happened, too. I'm not making this up, people). Thankfully, there was a RVer about a mile down the dirt road from us that just happened to have a portable pump, and we were able to get it inflated enough to drive 25 miles to the nearest service station to get it repaired. Someone upstairs was watching out for us.

Ah, the memories! Now for the pictures!