Oklahoma City airport on Wednesday. Sitting at the airport seemed like coming home in some ways. Traveling on cheap airline tickets has been a way of life for me for the last several years. Good to get out again.
Mary on the last day of the pack down.
Holy crap, I forgot that they had my old solid oak entertainment center. It weighs a ton. We hope someone finally took it off the lawn.
In an effort to get all of their deposits back, Puck worked hard on the lawn and planted flowers in the pots. As it turned out-- it worked. They got all three deposits back-- including the pet deposit.
Shakti, as you can imagine, thought the whole moving thing was a piss poor idea. This is her first night at a motel on the trip. Mary had to sleep on the floor with her to get her to settle down. So we stayed at a motel in Davis after the pack down, in order to get final errands run the next day.
The storage unit with all their stuff in it. The picture says it all.
Lovely that Puck will be going with Mary to Spain for the year.
Ya, all the stuff that's going to Spain and back to OK didn't fit in the van with me and the dog taking up all that space. Mary's sister (who gave it to her) will be pleased to know that they finally used that soft side cargo bag. Boy howdy did we!
Thunderstorm and rainbow as we were driving into Arizona on I-40. Beautiful.
We drove up to the grand Canyon in time to catch sunset.
The canyon sides light up with colors from the setting sun.
Really a gorgeous spot.
Mary caught me smiling.
Woo ah.
We got up at 4:45 am in order to catch sunrise at the canyon. This is the south rim of the canyon.
Mary's camera really does this better justice, but my little Kodak caught some of the color.
Amusingly, many people left as soon as the sun cleared the horizon. They never turned around to wait to see the colors of the canyon as the sun cleared the clouds on the horizon.
The layers of the rock appeared bit at a time as the sun came out from behind the cloud. The white limestone showing first.
Same spot a few minutes later as the pinks in the lower rock began to show.
This is the same spot again when the sun was fully up. Just looks like a different colored world.
The rounded humps are shelves lower down than I'm standing, with the river ravine far below them.
Puck and Mary in action. (We left Shakti sleeping in the van for this part of the adventure.)
Mary facing west to catch the colors on the canyon. I'm facing east, where all the colors stayed grey until the sun was fully up.
Doesn't she have a pretty smile?
This is just a few moments later, but she's taking a photo of me with the lit up western faces of the canyon behind me. (I'm wearing items of clothing of Mary's, Puck's, and my own. It was COLD.)
Shakti was much admired. As people got close on the trail, Puck would say, "She's nice. She's just big."
Obligatory bird photo included for Vikingchick and Wolfgirl to make an ID.
Holy smokes the chipmunks are cute. And they aren't mooches. People must be doing a better job of not feeding the wild animals, because not a single wild animal came up to us to beg.
This is the bright angel trail. The one that leads down to the bottom of the canyon. Puck and his family walked it once all the way to the base camp at the bottom and all the way back up.
There is enough rain here that there are wildflowers everywhere. They cautiously space themselves out, like Oklahomans in a crowded room--standing in the crowd but keeping an arm's distance away from their fellows.