So a bunch of the elders and sisters that James served with under Elder Anderson in France, decided to have a 20 year mission reunion as it's been 20 years since Elder Anderson was called as the mission president of the Bordeaux France mission. Anyway James decided that he wanted to go, so we drove like mad hatters ok, maybe not like that as it took us 2 days -we don't do late night driving, in fact when we rolled into Kanab at 10pm we were toast and didn't want to deal with the fact that due to tour buses nearly every room in the town was rented out. We got lucky and got a room at a local place that was apparently in the middle of remodeling and was renting out rooms that were almost done... yes almost done. Missing moldings here and there things in odd spots, it was great!
So we got up to Salt Lake City on Friday at like 2pm or so, the reunion was at 6 down in Draper but we were staying with my sister in SLC proper about 30 minutes from the reunion according to Mr. Google... but due to traffic coming into town and having been in the car for the better part of 2 days, and the fact that my sister has a nice sized house with a nice yard and a trampoline. Well factoring that in with the bonus of getting to wear dress shirts and ties and all three boys opted out of going down to the reunion. Which I guess was good as it was like a dinner then fireside sort of thing that went from 6 to 9pm. It was fun to meet people James knew on the mission and he loved reminiscing and harassing people he hasn't seen in nearly 2 decades! We then spent all day Saturday with my sister and her family and watched conference. Sunday we watched the morning session with them, they fed us lunch and we hopped in the car and listened to the afternoon session as we drove south, hoping to get to Kanab before the tour buses so we could possibly get a little nicer room... Luckily we made it. Ate dinner at an over priced western themed restaurant/novelty shop called spurs or boots or some other western iconic item.
Our motivation was to go visit a sight that people come from half way around the world to see and we've lived here nearly 3 years and have been within miles of but have not gone to see yet; that being of course The Grand Canyon. So Monday morning we left Kanab and stopped off at the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We were able to spend pretty much the entire morning there walking around finding a vista or two and just enjoying a natural marvel. Ryan is however, not really that much of a fan of heights. He wasn't particularly jazzed about going out onto the sun deck of the lodge and you can forget about the little point that was out there 20 yards or so. So James took the other two boys and they walked down there, and then along one of the trails that goes along just below the lodge to another point on the east side of the lodge.
Here is a shot from the lodge's sun deck of the pont they walked out to. You'll have to make it big to see the people standing on it in this photo.
Here's the one James took of Ty and Kyle out on the point. They took some others of the view but this is a family blog not a view blog so...
Here's the view back up to the lodge from the point. And the zoomed in view James took so you can see me and Ryan watching them.
I asked Ryan if he wanted to walk along the path that they would be coming up as they went away from the point and surprisingly he agreed. So we meet them at an intersection and the sign said it was like a quarter of a mile to Bright Angle Point. We hiked out there; Ryan did fine for a little bit. But once he realized that the mountain went down on either side of him he was done. Here's a photo at the end of the trail for Ryan...
So we waited for them to go out to the point take some photos and come back.
This one is just one of those interesting views that I guess we had to break our own rule and put it in this post...
James said that while they were walking Kyle asked why Ryan hadn't come along and when James told him Kyle said, "yeah, I'm scared of heights too" as he walked along the very edge of the trail looking over the railing, then followed it with "I'm afraid I might accidentally jump, without a parachute". Apparently we've got an X-games athlete on our hands... great...
I don't know does it look like he's thinking about jumping here? I hope not...
We then followed a trail that went back up into the woods and circled around to some 1000 year old Indian ruins, which turned out to be like 30 flat stones in a rectangle that made the foundation of an Indian house(?) lodge, whatever some thousand years ago... Anyway, walking back towards the lodge we spotted this doe feeding within 10 feet of the trail. She ignored us for a while then decided to move into the shade when she felt we and the other tourist had taken enough photos of her...
We drove from the lodge over to a vista I think it was called Royal Point or something and James was walking with Ryan up ahead of me. They turned the corner and the path went down a set of steps to an overlook on a precipice point. Ryan said to James, "Is that a point?" James said yes, Ryan said "Does the fence go all the way around it?" James told him it did. Ryan said, "Then I think I can go down there." So I was going to take a picture of the 4 of them and a tourist from Florida offered to get a picture of us all. We were and still are so proud of Ryan for facing and maybe even conquering (a little) his fear of heights!
I'm going to have to talk James into making a slide show of all of our Grand Canyon Photos to put on here...
