Grand Canyon North Rim - Day 1

    About one month ago, Jennie and I planned to make a long weekend trip to Santa Fe, NM. We had the place picked out, and a general idea of what we wanted to do. Unfortunately, Jennie ended up with a serious infection which required a few ER visits and an overnight in the hospital. We decided to scrap that trip and do something a little closer to home. At first we thought about the White Mountains, but I thought it would be more fun to take Jennie to the Grand Canyon's North Rim. I first visited that location in 2017 on the way back from a trip to Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park. Ryan and I spent all of 30 minutes looking around and were back on the way home.  I checked the lodging situation and found that the cabins were wide open.  I booked a Pioneer Cabin for us and we were off.

The drive North was uneventful.  We stopped in Flagstaff for a quick lunch at Oreganos and we were off for the remainder of the drive.  As we were approaching the Navajo Bridge near Marble Canyon, we spotted some wild horses in the desert with Vermillion Cliffs behind them.  We found a place to park and grabbed some photos of the horses.

    We drove a few more miles and stopped at the Navajo Bridge.  We walked out to the center of the bridge to grab a few pictures, and quickly made our way back to the visitors center.  It was 103 degrees when we got out of the car.  After a quick look at the gift shop items, we were back in the car until we stopped at the Cliff Dwellers location.  The name Cliff Dwellers makes you believe that Navajo members used to dwell in the cliffs.  However, the history behind the name comes from something completely different.  In the 1920's, Blanche Russell, a successful dancer with the Siegfried Follies was was traveling with her husband Bill.  Legend has it that they broke down near this location and liked it so much, they decided to stay.  We spent about ten minutes outside and got back in the car.

The rest of the trip consisted of the drive from Marble Canyon to the North Rim.  We parked the car, made a quick trip to a viewpoint and grabbed the key to our Frontier cabin.  Jennie is not the camping type, a was a little worried about this arrangement.  I decided to mess with her and told her that we do not have our own bathroom, but a shared one for the camp.  The look on her face was a mix of WTF, I'm leaving and many other emotions.  I let her off the hook and we found cabin 93.  After a look around the cabin, we grabbed our bags and unpacked.  This was a true cabin with no air conditioning and a few bugs making our way inside.

    We had dinner reservations for 8:15, so we headed over to the lodge to watch the sunset. While there was no dramatic clouds or sunset, you can't go wrong with the views from the North Rim.  We grabbed some cocktails and headed to dinner around 8:00.  They got us a table as soon as we checked in and we ordered a salad and trout, which we shared.  Both of the dishes were huge, and we ended up having food leftover despite two people sharing.  After dinner we rolled back to the cabin, where it was lights out around 10:00.