Grand Canyon: Day 1

Late last spring our friends the Shafers booked a campsite in the Grand Canyon.  They sent me a text asking if we were interested in booking one too.  Word got out and three other families joined in.  We were going to go Labor Day weekend.  Us, Shafers, Hills Thatchers and Sawyers.  We headed out on Saturday, August 31.  The whole ride was blustery and we dreary.  We drove through many rain storms.  We were certain that our weekend was going to be a bust due to all the rain.

Luckily, when we got there--sunshine welcomed us.  We quickly got to work and put up our tent, unloaded the food and started to blow up our air mattresses.  Just as we were inflating the last mattress, it started to rain.

So, we took a break for lunch.  I had prepped all our food for the weekend and we'd made a big batch of subs for our lunches for the weekend.  So, we just pulled everything out and enjoyed our lunch.

The rain continued to pour and our table was slanted, so we emptied some boxes and propped them up on the end of the table to catch the rain that was pouring down our table and Garry, Tanner and Taz made some gutters with kindling and duct tape and our table and seats became dryer.  Luckily this was the only rain we got this weekend, so we didn't have to use our handy dandy gutters much.

Either side of our camp had a little stream going down it during lunch, but we stayed mostly dry under our EZ up.

We decided to go to the visitor center and look around to wait out the rain.  Apparently everyone else had that same idea, but we got into the movie and enjoyed learning about the Grand Canyon.

We got back to camp and got to work chopping some kindling and unloading our sleeping bags.

This was our kitchen/dining area for the weekend.

And the completed gutters.

Our site was right next to the Shafers and so Madeline was a frequent visitor at our camp while her parents continued to set up!

Taz was the chosen one to go into the tent shoeless and arrange the air mattresses and unroll the sleeping bags.  That meant he got to try everything out and rest a little too.

We grilled some hamburgers for dinner and let the Shafers put their foil dinners on our grill so they wouldn't have to wait for a fire.

Jen and Andrea came by to visit and check in.  It was so nice being close to all our friends.

Alexis and Taz had the job of getting an evening campfire going. 

Soon it was roaring and Cynjyn spent some time enjoying it by herself before everyone came.

We had dinner by lantern light.

After dinner, all the families came over to our fire and we had lively conversation and S'mores roasting. 

Taz, Tanner and Alexis had a contest to see who could keep their rear ends closest to the fire the longest.  Tanner was the first one out and I believe Alexis was the final winner.

After the S'mores, the kids and a few men played Mafia around the campfire.  The rest of us played some Phase 10 at the table.  We snuggled in bed by 11 for the night.