Per usual, I was the first one awake today. I was a bit anxious to get everyone moving because it was a moving day but I decided to let them sleep and instead drove the car to the visitor center to work on the blog and catch up on texts and emails. While I was there there were a lot of Pinyon Jays flying around and chirping.

Back at the camper I got people moving around 8:30 am. We packed up, had breakfast, then took the camper to the dump station (our site had electric and water but no sewer).

My original plan was to find a free site near the north rim of the Grand Canyon for the next couple of nights. Lack of reservations, the holiday weekend, the heat, and the dirt roads were weighing heavily on Nole’s mind. He found a paid site outside of the Grand Canyon area with full hookups and we decided to go for it. We booked their last available site using the visitor center wifi yesterday afternoon.

We stopped for groceries on the way there. I did the shopping while Nole took the kids to get lunch and gas. I was worried about the cost of the groceries. Near Bryce the grocery stores were very expensive — about 50% above normal prices and I was worried about the cost between here and the Grand Canyon. No Walmarts between the two places either. I don’t usually grocery shop at Walmart at home but it’s nice to have some consistency when shopping on the road. A half hour trip at home turns into an hour or more when you don’t know where to find anything or what you will be able to find. The store Nole found on the map, Honey’s Market, was well stocked and reasonable. The store was laid out logically too and I made it out in about 45 minutes.

We stopped at a national monument called Pipe Springs. It’s on a Paiute Reservation. This place was once the site of a spring that attracted game and provided water to tribespeople. Mormon settlers came with cattle and built a fort over the spring, preventing the tribes and wildlife from using it and keeping it for themselves and their livestock only.

They also let the livestock graze on the grains that the gatherers of the tribe used for food. There were fights that killed both Mormons and Paiute Indians but the Paiute were nearly wiped out from this area after a massacre that occurred.

The federal government returned this area to the Paiute but kept the spring as a national monument and use it to teach people what happens when people from different cultures fail to understand and respect each other.

We did the Junior Ranger Program and walked the site. We explored the house, called Windsor Castle and talked with rangers. We also got to see and pet their longhorn cattle.

We got to our site around 3:30pm with a time change because most of Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings time, got set up and made dinner. We want to get an early start tomorrow so we didn’t do anything too exciting after that and tried to have an early bedtime.

Since this was a lighter day, I thought I would also mention a few things from the last few days here as well.

We have seen a bunch of dust devils which has been cool. I haven’t been able to get any pictures but here is one from the National Weather Service and a link to some information about them. https://www.weather.gov/fgz/DustDevil

I also wanted to mention a game we have been playing. I speak French, the boys speak Spanish and Asa is learning Italian. I also have a pretty good ear for languages I don’t speak. We encountered many people from foreign countries on this trip but there seemed to be an abundance in Bryce. We made it a game to name the language when we hear it which resulted in the following tabulations from the last 2 days. Dutch – 2, Italian – 7, French – 11. It also resulted in the eternal embarrassment of Cal when I would loud-whisper “FRENCH” in the grocery store.

Total miles today: 138