Friday 27 September 2024

Friday 27 September

Hermits Rest Bus Tour

Friday was a pretty open day.

Tammy getting up and ready!

Hike at Shoshone Point

After the bus tour we wanted to take the short hike to Shoshone Pt that "Sam" our tour guide had told us about the day before. He said it was little used (except by locals), and the best view in the place, and we figured it'd be short enough for Elizabeth hike with us.

Tammy getting up and ready!

Geology Museum

I can't recall exactly how we got onto the idea of checking out the Geology Museum, but we did. It's out by Granduer Point, on Entrance Road about 3/4 of the way from Maswik to the Park Store and Visitor's Center. I think we wanted to go to the Park Store for something, maybe snacks for the long ride on Saturday out to Antelope Canyon and back to Las Vegas.

Anyway, we did, and it was fairly unimpressive and mostly meant for kids. BUT, Grandeur Point was cool, you could see down to the river, and there was a guy there with a spotting scope (for hunting) letting folks take look. He happened to mention there was going to be a skygazing/astronomy night that night at the Visitor's Center! That was great news, as I had wanted to do that all summer, but the Park's website implied that all of those had happened for the season.

Yavapai Geology Museum
location
Gift Shop
museum inside
Museum view

Dinner at "We Cook Pizza and Pasta, Tusayan, AZ

After a busy day, and being on a short carb hiatus, we had dinner at the conveniently located "We Cook Pizza" restaurant near the iMax and Buck Wild in Tusayan. Our tour guide had recommended it, and there we good reviews online. It was actually quite tasty, and I over-ordered (16" didn't sound that big...) and I think I enjoyed the bread sticks more than the pizza, but it was all good.

Cheering Hikers at Bright Angel Trailhead

We had a bit of time to kill after dinner, but waiting for the sun to set for the stargazing event... and John had some really good stories from Wednesday night when he'd walked from our lodge back down to the BA to see if folks were still coming up the trail. We were all pretty intrigued, so we walked down to check it out, and give Elizabeth a bit of exposure to the trail itself.

We ran into several groups of Rim2Rim hikers, one really big group that was missing one of theirs (she did turn up while we were there), and one older lady that came up while we were hiking down to the arch that told us about getting dehydrated while on the hike (yikes). But Elizabeth was the hit of the event because she just couldn't contain her exuberance!

Elizabeth Cheering hikers on!

Selfie
"USie"

Stargazing / Astronomy Night at the Visitor's Center with Dean Regis

It just happens that Thursday night was Jupiter's closest approach to Earth, and Dean Regas (wiki) (formerly of the Cincinnati Observatory (old website), where we had previously met him during an Open House) was in town in the park that week, and leding a stargazing evening on Friday.

He had recently 'retired' from the Observatory, and was in town to do a Rim2River (starting on the north rim, and North Kaibab Trail), stay a few nights at Phantom Ranch, and then hike up the Bright Angel to the south rim, and hosted the astronomy night beforehand.

So, after dinner at "We Cook", we headed back to the Visitor's Center and started looking around for astronomers. It was a bit confusing at first, as there was no big banner or anything saying there was going to be an event, but once the sun started to set you could easily see the red LED light strips leading you behind the center to the parking lot where they had setup.