We woke up bright and early, 6am to be exact. What am I doing waking up this early!? Once we were ready we decided to take a walk around the South Rim first and then drive. We hooked up the dogs and off we went. As we were walking towards the Rim I noticed how quiet and peaceful it was. We had to walk through the Market Plaza parking lot, cross the street and through a wooded area before coming out to the Rim. Let me tell you, if you haven't been to the Grand Canyon you must go. I used to be one of those people that thought I'd seen it by looking at photos or documentaries. Those are nothing to actually experiencing it for yourself. It's majestic, spiritual, peaceful and beautiful.
We walked for quite awhile until we came to the Amphitheater. There is a
documentary that is played several times a day however, it was too
early when we arrived so nothing was playing. I imagine it would get
pretty hot sitting outside watching the movie during the summer but in
the Spring or Fall it should be enjoyable. The trail we walked around is called the Trail of Time. At various points of the trail there are these brass emblems embedded into the path that state the periods of time you are walking; i.e. 980 million years, 880 million years and so on. There are also blocks of the Grand Canyon from the different layers displayed as you walk. Each one has a description of the type of rock and the age.
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| Ampitheater | |
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| Nankoweap Sandstone 900 million years old |
We walked for a little more but decided not to go all the way to the Yavapai Point Geology Museum so we turned around and headed back to camp. Once back at camp we unhooked the RV and my husband got into the drivers seat, started it up and called out to me "ready to go?" I said "sure but don't you want to put the slide-out in first?". So I pushed the button to retract the slide-out and nothing happened. Oh crap, what do we do now?! My husband thought we may have blown a fuse, but that wasn't it. Then he thought we needed the generator on but that wasn't it. So he shut off the generator went back outside and hooked up the electric cord for shore power thinking that was the issue but it wasn't. He came back in and as we just looked at each other thinking I said "maybe the engine needs to be turned off". Sure enough, that was the problem. You can't operate the slide-out function while the RV engine is running. It's a safety feature. Glad we figured that out. Like I said, we're RV newbies :-)
There are a number of pull-outs along the Rim. We stopped at all but Navajo Point. They all have spectacular views of the Grand Canyon but my favorite was Lipan Point. It had the best panoramic view, in my opinion. We stopped at Tusayan Museum & Ruins which was very interesting.
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| Living quarters |
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| tree dating explanation |
When we got back to camp we relaxed awhile and decided to make dinner. While I was washing up the dishes I reached over to check the tank levels (something I do periodically) and one of the tanks was full! How did that happen in such a short amount of time??? This morning is was zero. My husband rushed outside and hooked up the sewer hose (remember he didn't want to hook it up). We both thought it had to be the grey tank because I had washed dishes twice each day and we both took showers. So he dumped the grey tank and voila! nothing happened, the tank still showed full. Oh crap, that means it's the black tank that's full. Sure enough when he pulled the other handle a whoosh of yucky water flushed out. The question now is why is the black tank full. We hardly used it and we were experts in RV black water tanks. We watched all the YouTube videos and read lots of blogs on the subject. How could this happen? (hahaha, yeah right, experts). We spent the next 20 minutes running water in the shower, bathroom sink, kitchen sink and flushing the toilet to try to figure out the problem. This is what we found out; the bathroom sink and the shower empty to the grey water tank. The kitchen sink and toilet empty into the black water tank. At first we thought we had a major plumbing issue but we Googled (thank goodness for Google!) and found out that this is common in a lot of RV's. So no more problem with our tanks or plumbing. I think this trip was a shake down for us as well as the RV :-)
We finish our trip in the next part. Until then.
"Adventure is out there"
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