Things started off tough for Matt...
This is him on the plane feeling too Chubby. I thought I had heard somewhere that you had to weigh less than 180 lbs to go on a grand canyon mule ride. He was worried. It turns out it was 200 lbs (and they did weigh us!) ...but Matt was quite concerned for a while and skipped desert the days leading up to it just in case.
It turns out he was also just a few months away from being able to rent the car...and so he dubbed this "the trip that I was too Young and Chubby".
After we landed in Flagstaff and got our rental car, we drove to the largest meteor crash site on Earth!
Here is Matt in awe the meteor that did it.
Here is the big hole in the ground it left.
Late that afternoon we drove to the very touristy and very beautiful Sedona. The car ride to and from was my favorite. Nail biting, hairpin turns all the way down in our little rented Chevy Cobalt.
We found a shop called the Blue-Eyed Bear!
After spending the night in a flagstaff, we left the next morning for the grand canyon. Once you get into the national park the animals lose all natural fear of humans. The deer and the squirrel look at you like "Whadda yous lookin at?"
Later on in our trip a tour guide told us that the most common thing the medical clinic treats is squirrel bites. These aren't Snow Whites friends.
The next morning Matt "Chubs" Beckman and I were given the green light and suited up for our 7-hour mule ride to the almost-bottom of the canyon. Check out our sweet "Mule Rider" jackets.
Muleboy just doesn't have the ring that cowboy does...but Matt can make anything look good.
Matt Missing.
Pretty sweet wineskins, eh?
"I hope I don't get the chubby one"
I actually took this picture the day before, not knowing that this is where we would have lunch this day...at the point of this plateau.
After many bumpy hours down (and MAN we were hurting, knees, backs, backsides, you name it) we made it to that plateau point!
Here we are after having an box lunch and watching the Colorado river below, still far enough up that we could barely hear the rapids below, and above us eagles soaring. To see the grand canyon 360 degrees - An exhilarating moment. One of the most amazing things I have ever experienced.
After lunch we were called to "saddle back up" We, somewhat reluctantly, hobbled back to our mules. Mine was named "Mister" and Matt's was named "Razzo". Matt wanted to take a picture with his mule and so we took the photo below. Only seconds after we took this picture, the head wrangler guy told Matt "That's not your mule. That's 'Tank'". So the picture below is Matt with someone else's mule!...who must have been confused by Matt's love.
Here is the view down from saddle-back. Do you see the trails below? The mules would walk right on the loose, gravely edge of the trails. You'd see the mule's hoof in front of you push sand and gravel off the ledge...and hope yours wasn't doing that!
I took this next picture to try to show scale. In this photo, you will see another group of mule riders. If you can't find them, I have zoomed into this same picture in the next one down.
Do you see them yet? Now go back
to the picture above and try to find them. Look towards the bottom third of the picture.
Post mule adventure, all we wanted to do was take a hot shower and sleep. In fact, Matt got sick (un-related to the mule ride...but it probably didn't help) and so we spent the last day at the lodge watching the Cosby Show and eating saltines and sprite.
The next morning we took one more look at the canyon before heading back to the airport. The air smelled so good. So clean. It was cold too. Around 40s - 60s during the day 30s at night while we were there.
One last photo. We will never forget this trip together.
1 comment:
It's hard to buckle a seat belt when you've got two plugs and no buckles. Maybe you were supposed to hook a bungie cord between the two holes. Or perhaps there was an extra fee from the airline to have a working seatbelt. You know airlines and fees these days.
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