Day Eight: Galluping to the Grand Canyon

Some kids dream of growing up to be park rangers, but not all dreams come true. Reality hits them hard, and those kids go to college, then off into the real world, off to real world jobs. But we Four Amigos aren't about to let college get the better of us. Today, in a class of 15-20 four to six-year olds, we achieved the dream. We became Junior Park Rangers.

But the day started out so inauspiciously. LT2 was at the helm of the Swedish Tank today as the Four Lokos made their way from Gallup, NM to the GRAND CANYON!  Before we loaded up the car, Altitude and Ocho went for a scenic run in Gallup.  As soon as Ocho completed another one of her beautiful packing jobs, we hit the road for another adventure.

The first stop was the Petrified Forest National Park.  We got there so early that for a while we seemed to be the only living souls in the park.  The Ocho was super impressed by all of the dino references within the park and was aching to see a fossil (or real dino) ASAP!  We learned a ton of stuff about how the very old (250 million years give or take) trees turned into the rock-like things that exist today.  It’s science!

After we finished exploring the park we headed to the Ranger Center, where Ocho enthusiastically asked is we all could become Junior Rangers.  Ranger Steve was kind enough to humor us and hand us four junior ranger booklets.  After diligently working on the booklets for 20 minutes, we were ready to be evaluated.  All, but one of us passed with flying colors (that's what a humanities degree from Harvard gets you), but alas all four lokos graduated as junior rangers!  And guess what, the Petrified forest was the first National park to have the junior ranger program so we all got free patches with our badges!

The next stop on the road was Sedona.  After making our way down the steep canyon road, we pulled off the road to have a picnic lunch.  Ocho and Altitude scoped out a sweet grazing ground near a minor river.  We ate lunch and drank some brews as we waded in the water.  It was glorious to say the least and possibly the best lunch yet.  As we exited our picnic site The Captain put a chocolate bar in his pocket to eat later (such a cliffhanger)!  We decided the town of Sedona was too touristy and off to the GRAND CANYON we went!

The drive to the GRAND CANYON was rather uneventful as most of the four lokos dozed in the car.  As we near the GRAND CANYON!, The Captain discovers a brown substance on his arm and pants.  No Dear Readers, he did not lose control of his bowels, but that chocolate bar that he put in his pocket 3 hours earlier did melt all over the place (oh no!).  Thank goodness for leather seating.  We managed to remove the chocolate from the car, but his pants are another story.  We managed to get into camp without any troubles and our car now had the sweet aroma of chocolate in the air (there aren’t bears at the GRAND CANYON!!!, are there?).

We hastily set up camp and headed to catch the last shuttle to Hopi point to watch our first sunset in the GRAND CANYON!!!!!!!.  It was The Captain, Ocho, and Alititude’s first time seeing the GRAND CANYON!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and they were absolutely awestruck!  We cracked open a few beers and sat back to enjoy the sunset.  It was absolutely amazing!  After sunset we headed back to camp and had ourselves a quick dinner and prepared for the next day.  We went to bed right after that because we knew that in the morning we would face our greatest challenge yet as college graduates; waking up at 3:30 am to watch the sunrise. But we four over-sized Junior Park Rangers had achieved the dream. Nothing will stop us now.