For the past six years or so, my sister and brother-in-law have spent Thanksgiving in the Grand Canyon. (Okay, so they took a year off in 2001 - but Cameron was barely a month old, so I guess they had a good excuse.) Last year, I decided it would be fun for Leif and I to go with them at some point.
Our camp site.
I mentioned this over the summer, and Shawna said "great, come this year - we're doing a modified family hike." Since they were taking Cameron, and their friends were taking their 1 year old, they had made plans to do a short hike. I hesitated, thinking this year was too soon. But, we eventually agreed.
The crew
Note, no kids are in the picture. Somehow, the modified family hike ended up with the other couple heading for warmer weather, and our kids hanging with Grandma and Papa. So, the short 4.5 mile hike to Indian Gardens begam the modified family hike, with me being the representative family.
That worked out great, since the shorter hike was really ideal for me. Shawna was great - patient enough to walk out with me (which definitely took restraint on her part). We hiked down to Indian Gardens, then out to the plateau. We had thanksgiving dinner in the canyon (yes, the non-vegetarians had turkey, relish, stuffing, corn, rolls,pecan pie - my brother-in-law even used dry ice to hike in ice cream), and then Shawna, Mike, and I hiked out on Friday. I made it out in average time - yippee!
