Desert View - Day 29 - Friday, or Monday?

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7:15 am - Saturday - December 9th - Grand Canyon - 28º F, humidity 23%, wind 5 mph out of the east by southeast.....forecast for today is sunny with a high of 51º F in the offing.....in fact we have a string of 50+ days coming over the next two weeks......

.......so we will be getting out there on our days off work to do some more hiking.

Now that the daily temperatures have dipped consistently into the 50's we are having to adjust our idea of what ideal hiking weather is.  When we were in Yellowstone we loved days that were slightly cloudy with highs in the 60's, or 70's.  Now we look for sunny days in the 40's, or 50's as ideal days to go hiking.  I guess it's all a matter of perspective, and what you are willing to tolerate weather-wise.  It looks like this coming Wednesday and Thursday will see temps in the 53-54 range with sunny skies.....perfect!

I had the 'open' shift Friday.  Now that we are settling into having the same days off work each week I find myself thinking Friday is Monday, and that happened Friday.  I made a comment to the assistant manager, Wayne, that it was Monday and we needed to have a visit from our sandwich guy as all of our 'Grab and Go' sandwiches were expiring.  Wayne reminded me it was really Friday and the sandwich guy would be coming later in the day......lol....he comes every Friday.....😏

I look forward to the 'open' shift because they seem to go faster to me, even though they are the same exact length as the 'close' shift.......5.5 hours.  Now the 'open shift used to run from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm, or 5 hours, but our manager, Dakota, recently equalized all the shifts so they were all the same length.....5.5 hours, so the 'open' shift now runs to 1 pm.  Anyway, there are a lot of opening responsibilities which take about 90 minutes to finish, and keep me steadily busy for that period of time.  The store does not tend to get busy until early afternoon, usually after the 'open' shift ends.

I was home by 1:15 and settling in to read my book (Dark Tower, book 7).  I'm about 83% through the book now and getting to the conclusion rapidly.  My Kindle does tell me what 'page' I'm on, but just what percentage I've read.  If I remember correctly, book 7 was around 800 pages.  I've enjoyed reading this 7 book series much more slowly than I did the first time, and it seems like I am getting more out of it this time around.  I read the 7 book series the first time about 10 years ago, and plowed through it in just a few weeks.  I began rereading the series back in the spring, and have been taking about a month per book.

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By 3:30 I decided I needed to spend some time riding my stationary bike.  Usually I spend about 30 minutes 'riding' it, but I have been steadily increasing my time in the saddle and recently 'rode' for about 45 minutes.....my goal was to do it for 60 minutes.  When I actually ride my bike outside I usually ride for a minimum of an hour which usually means 10-15 miles of riding.  I've been having some trouble with my stationary bike stand (I call it my bike trainer) lately......it has kind of been slowly breaking down over the past few weeks, and Friday it finally gave up the ghost just as I was within a minute of my hour goal.  Thankfully I ordered a new bike trainer, which is much more expensive and it arrived at the General Store about 5:30 pm Friday just as TLE was about to leave for home after her shift.  It's a good thing because the old one is now sitting outside the trailer ready to be hauled to the dumpster.  It's just another case of 'you get what you pay for' and I only paid about $40 for this one.....that it lasted this long (got it back in April just after we arrived at SLT) is a minor miracle.....my new one purchased on Amazon Prime cost just over $100....I'm looking forward to un-boxing it1

TLE was home from work about 5:40 pm, and we settled in for the evening.  We had pans to watch the final episodes of Longmire, season 6......the final season.  I am always concerned how the writers will end a series.  I mentioned we were a little disappointed in how 'Mad Men' ended, so we were on pins and needles as we began watching 'Longmire' wondering how the writers would end the series.  We were not disappointed, and that is all I will say because I know a few of you are also into that series, and if you haven't watched season 6 I don't want to spoil it for you.  If you haven't watched this series it is a great one to 'binge watch'....check it out!

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Desert View - Day 28 - Adapting to the cold

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5:44 am - Friday - December 8th - Grand Canyon - 17º F, humidity 40%, wind  - CALM.....forecast is clear skies with a high of 49º F.  In spite of the very low morning temps we have not had our water line freeze again.

It was nice to wake up to the sun once again!  I was up about 7:20, and enjoyed the front salon by myself until well after 8 am....wish I could sleep in like TLE.  Even at that time the temps had not made it into the 30's yet.  By the time I went outside just after 10 am the sun was shinning into our site nicely, and in spite of the temps being in the mid 30's was able to stand in the windless sunshine feeling quite comfortable.  My purpose for being outside in that temperature was to dump our black tank as it had been about 8 days since the last dump.  All went well until I went to hookup the hose I use to flush the black tank to the hose bib on the passenger side of the coach.....apparently I had left too much water in the hose when I disconnected it the previous time and it was now full of ice, and no water would flow through it......hmmmm.  The only choice was to disconnect it from both sides and lay it in the sun until it thawed out enough to force the ice out under pressure.  Within about 20 minutes I was able to flush the ice out, and get back to flushing our black tank.  That took just a few minutes, and I was finally able to go back inside the coach and get warm again.  This time when I turned the water off I made sure all the water was drained out of the flushing hose to avoid a repeat performance.

Even though the daytime high temperature was only supposed to get to 38º F, we had planned to take a hike sometime in the afternoon down the old fire road I rode my MTB on last week.  By 2 pm it seemed it would get no warmer than the 37º F at the time so we set off on our hike.  We planned to hike just 50 minutes down the trail which I figured would amount to about 2 miles down and then 2 miles back up the hill......the skies were crystal clear and you could see a long, long way........

.....after about 25 minutes of hiking (about 1 mile) we came to a place where we could see into the Grand Canyon, and also caught a view of the Watchtower (see two pictures just above)......by the time we hit our 50 minute mark we had covered exactly 2 miles.  I forgot to turn on my Strava program at the beginning, but had it on for the return hike back to the Newell.....apparently we dropped 633' in elevation to our turn around point.  The hike back confirmed the two mile distance, and showed we had gained 633' in elevation by the time we reached the Newell.  In all we hiked 4 miles (I'm doubling the one way distance), and burned somewhere just over 700 caloric units, and our one way moving time was 45 minutes and 40 seconds.....just under 3 mph for the return hike.......

......we were home by 3:40 pm.....while we were a little cold going downhill, the hike back up the hill warmed us up completely and there was no immediate rush to get back inside the Newell......within a few minutes after we did go back inside I looked out the window to see 4 mule deer foraging right next to our picnic table.  You can tell mule deer by their long mule like ears......

......while there are a lot of mule deer in this area, this is the first time I have seen them in our site.

We watched the news for the first time in quite a while to see what was happening with the possible government shutdown and found out quickly that a 'Continuing Resolution' had been passed by both houses of congress extending the deadline to come up with a budget until December 22nd, so we will be working at least two more weeks before the next deadline.

By 5 pm it was getting quite cold again outside, and I was grateful I would be sleeping inside and not outside with the mule deer.  Since I had the 'open' shift Friday I was in bed just before 10 pm, and slept like a baby all night.

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Desert View - Day 27 - Orientation and more exploring

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7:43 am - Thursday - December 7th - Grand Canyon - 24º F, humdity 31%, wind 8 mph out of the east.....sunny today with wind up 16 mph, and a forecast high of 38º F.

Wednesday was our 'Saturday', but we had to devote 4 hours of our off day at our Delaware North orientation meeting held at the Grand Canyon Recreation Center near the Village.  In order to be at the Rec Center before 8:30 we decided to leave Desert View no later than 7:30 to make the 27 mile drive.  We've been through a similar DNC orientation just prior to starting our summer jobs at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone NP.  I know the presenters do their best to make essentially boring material interesting, but there is only so much one can do.  Our friend, Art Young, was there also.  I've written about Art a few times....we first met him at Amazon in Fernley Nevada back in 2014, and then began this past summer working with him at Tahoe Valley Campground.....all three of us ended up quitting TVC in early June for essentially the same reasons to move up to Yellowstone NP to work out the summer.  We worked at different stores in Yellowstone, but kept in touch throughout the summer, and he eventually decided to transfer to the Grand Canyon to work at the Marketplace store in Grand Canyon Village.

Our orientation session was over about 12:15 at which time TLE and I headed out in the VW to do some more exploring.  The air temp was in the low 40's when we exited the Rec Center and never really got out the 40's the rest of the day.....thankfully it was not breezy, or windy.  We had not yet done any exploring west of the Village, so our first stop was Powell Point which is on the road out to Hermit's Rest......

......Powell Point juts way out into the GC so the view is spectacular.....

 Powell Point

.......our primary destination was Hermit's Rest located at the extreme western end of GCNP.  Hermit's rest was also designed by the architect Mary Colter who designed at least 5 other  landmark structures at the Grand Canyon including Desert View Watchtower, Hopi House, Bright Angel Lodge, etc......

 

Hermit's Rest is at the end of the road on the west end of the South Rim

......like the Desert View Watchtower, Mary Colter designed Hermit's Rest to appear that it had been there for decades, and have the appearance that it had been carved out of the landscape by a 'mountain man'.  Hermit's Rest is also the trailhead for the Hermit's Rest trail which takes you down into the Canyon......

After visiting Hermit's Rest we made our way back to the Village stopping at several additional vista points along the Hermit's Rest Road (Pima Point, Mohave Point, Hopi Point, Maricopa Point, etc.).  

We arrived back at the parking lot for the El Tovar Hotel around 2:15 pm.......the El Tovar hotel is at the end of the Grand Canyon Railroad tracks, and sits just feet from the rim of the Grand Canyon....

 Hopi (pronounced hōpē) House, also designed and built by Mary Colter

 The El Tovar Hotel

Grand Canyon Railroad train awaiting passengers for its return trip to Williams, AZ

......by the time we finished our brief tours of The Hopi House and the El Tovar Hotel it was closing in on 3 pm and we were getting hungry, so we made our way over to the Yavapai Tavern (run by Delaware North) located at the Marketplace Center.....they have a number of craft beers on tap, and have a great pub food menu.  We arrived just as they were opening and took seats at the bar.  We both ordered their Piehole Porter (Historic Brewing Company, Flagstaff, AZ).....

Yavapai Tavern

.......we then ordered a plate of their potato skins, and a plate of their Bison Sliders, which we split......two potato skins for each, and one Bison Slider each.  We thoroughly enjoyed talking with the bartender, Masha, who is a 20 something lady from the Ukraine.  Yelp gives them 3 stars on 6 reviews, and Tripadvisor gives them 3.5 stars on 143 reviews.....we would rate them somewhere between 3.5-4 stars.....great ambiance, service and food!

Just across the large parking lot from the Yavapai Tavern is the General Store where we headed next to do a small shopping before heading back to Desert View.  We were back home just before 5 pm.  We had a staff meeting at 6 pm at the Desert View store so we put our groceries away, changed clothes and headed over to the store.  Apparently there is a possibility of a Federal Government shutdown due to a lack of a budget, which would happen as soon as this weekend, so we may find ourselves on an unexpected vacation by Monday......hmmmmm.....what to do?

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