Here’s another travel-piece excerpt that includes fossil hunting and what a place to do it!

                                    The Grand Canyon-Part I

I had never been to the Grand Canyon but Ruthie had. Except-it had been long ago and she’d only looked down at it from the overlook to snap photos. So, here we were at the South Rim as Ruthie, ever the photographer, tried to capture its overall immensity.            

She put down the camera. “Even with our wide lens, I can’t capture it all!”

On our left was the Bright Angel Trail. Gripping her hiking poles, she added, “It’s also lots deeper than I remembered!”                                                                 

            While not sissies with hiking, we saw that this twisting trail was edged by sheer rock walls plunging straight down for thousands of feet. Plus, the cold, blustery mid-May wind was buffeting our jackets and nearly blowing off our hats. Others were getting off the shuttle buses to mill around at the overlook just long enough to take quick snapshots. Next they were all beating hasty retreats into the warm visitor center for nice hot breakfasts. Briefly, we were tempted to do likewise. Not on your life. Irresistibly drawn by the spectacular scene below, we pushed off with our hiking poles and started down.

            Walking downhill was easy but as low-elevation Wisconsinites we weren’t used to the altitude. Stopped to catch our breaths I gasped, “What’s the elevation, I wonder?”

A nearby pair of veteran hiker guys heard me. Feeding me a smug little smile, one yanked out a GPS unit and announced loud enough for anyone within fifty feet to hear, “Our present elevation is exactly 6550 feet!”

As we continued down, Ruthie shushed me as I muttered, “Showing off his GPS like that, what a jerk!” Thinking about it, I added, “Maybe we could get one?”

 Our “Ooo’s” and “Ahh’s” were non-stop as we wound down through the rock formations. Better, the bright sun was enhancing them in living Technicolor. Our shoulders virtually brushed the Coconino Formation, a layer of white and tan sandstone nearly two-hundred feet thick. Ruthie pointedly photographed the next layer, a formation of Hermit Shale painted in gorgeous deep reds. Scattered atop its downward-slanting slopes in striking contrast were gigantic bright white blocks of the Coconino tumbled down from above.

By now hundreds of feet below the rim the temperature was warm enough to shed our jackets and gloves. Compared to the winter conditions topside, it was summer here.

A young woman who had been following right on our heels joined us when we stopped to examine some walnut-sized fossils sticking out of a boulder. Having already peeked at our guide booklet, I had read about these fossils. Not above showing off my newly gained expertise at Mill Creek Canyon, either, I proclaimed, “Aha! These are brachiopods!” Unimpressed, Ruthie just rolled her eyes.

After snapping close-up photos of the fossils, the young woman poured it out in a rush. “Hi! I’m Nao Ko from Japan! I only get one week off a year from the Tokyo bank where I work! So, I flew to Los Angeles and zoomed over here to see the Grand Canyon! We have nothing like it at home! I only have time to go a little farther! Goodbye!” After throwing us a cheery wave, she hurried down ahead of us on her impossible mission with trying to see it all in a day.

At the two-mile point we reached the Rest House, a log hut built atop a gigantic boulder jutting out from the canyon wall. After using the john and refilling our water bottles we peered over the balcony rail at the trail below. What we could see of it meandered downward until dropping out of sight over the edge of a broad plateau. More than a thousand feet below this was the bottom of the canyon. Down there we could barely make out the Colorado River, a tiny gray thread winding between the massive canyon walls. Should we head down closer toward it? 

Find out whether we did in Part II.