We started fairly slowly—there’s a lot to arrange before leaving for a 5-week trip that you don’t have to do as much of before a smaller trip. For instance, we canceled our trash collection for a month. We have 2 people looking in on the cats (since it’s a long time and it’s best to not over-burden just one friend—thanks again, Beau). We packed everything we could think of (knowing that’s really impossible) and set out from San Jose on Tuesday, March 31 at just after 2, heading generally towards the Grand Canyon.
We made our way through California through Gilroy, down I-5 and across US 40. Given that we have a baby and a dog with us and are towing a trailer, we move more slowly that we might otherwise, but we knew that when we decided to take the trip. We made it as far as Ludlow, a bit shy of the Arizona border. We pulled off in a rest stop to sleep for the night, which is a bit noisy, but otherwise fine (and free!). The next day, we got up, ate breakfast (one of the joys of having an RV for a trip like this) and made it the rest of the way to Grand Canyon.
We’d made reservations for the campground in the park through Sunday morning. One nice thing about state and federal campground is that they’re cheap—we paid $18 per night to stay right on the south rim. Accommodations that close can be easily over $300 per night. We had also packed the trailer to the gills with food from home, so we planned on eating in the trailer most meals (in fact, we only ate in a restaurant once while in the canyon, and it was easily the worst meal we had the whole time).
I’d been to the Grand Canyon before and was a bit underwhelmed. This time, with more time to explore, I enjoyed it a lot more. We did all of the free tours, which entail buses that take you along the various parts of the south rim and let you on-and-off as much as you like. The first two days, we hiked along the part goes from just above the visitors’ center to the start of the “red line”, which is a longer hike. We did that the third day, using buses to get to a lot of the points-of-interest there, and walking a little less. The Grand Canyon isn’t particularly dog-friendly—dogs (or strollers for that matter) are not allowed on the buses—but they did have a kennel that we used a little when we wanted to do something where the dog wasn’t allowed.
The weather was weird, but mostly in a good way as far as seeing the canyon goes. It was brisk the first day, but incredibly clear, leading to good views of the canyon. As we got back to camp, it started snowing, which we knew was a possibility, but it actually came down quite a bit more than was forecast. It got down to the mid-twenties that night, which led to some interesting trailer issues, which you can read about in the post (coming soon), “I need more power!”. The next night was even colder: 17 degrees. Our tanks froze, but nothing burst. Whew!
The days were cold, but not nearly as severe, and the crisp weather really made for some great views of the canyon. There are far fewer people in the canyon in the spring, and the guides indicated that the combination of the views, cooler weather and fewer people made this time of year one of the best to see the Grand Canyon. I had a good time and recommend coming this time of year if you can manage it.
Soon enough Sunday came, and we rolled towards Phoenix….
Pics are in my Grand Canyon set on Flickr.