It was early when we stumbled out of our tent to see a raft appearing on the river, followed by a few others. They were headed our way.

Grand Canyon Park personnel were the only ones on board. The first guy that paddles up asks Caroline to hold onto his raft a moment while he tends to something or other; according to him, Caroline is now an “honorary boat wrangler.” They’d been upriver dropping off some people to work on trails and were ending their winter rafting trip here at Diamond Creek, which turns out to be one of the main take-outs for people on river trips through the Canyon.

A couple of people in trucks showed up to help these rafters return to civilization, and so while they busied themselves, we tried to hide over here behind a rock and blade of grass, acting casual and not trying to be up in their business although we were curious as hell about every aspect of what they had just been doing and how they go about leaving the river.

With the last raft pulling up to shore, the job of removing all the gear and then deflating and washing the rafts got underway. I don’t think they needed more than an hour to go from river to truck bed and head up the dusty road.

Shortly after the park personnel left, Lisa and Daniel left, too. But we are not alone; some bighorn sheep have come down to check us out and get a drink.

This small ripple of a rapid and a larger one around the corner further down the river has the soundtrack serenading our stay.

Well, this looks a lot different to us from our arrival late yesterday afternoon. We are happy to sit here and watch the wispy clouds go by. With the sun on us, it’s nice and warm compared to the slight chill from earlier, but then again, it is January, and up on the rim, it is freezing.

While we are not going anywhere else, we watch the world exist where there is much to find here and many things to explore while contemplating the entire system at work.

Another group of boaters is arriving – that was until they didn’t head for shore but instead just paddled by.

We were expecting to find desert down here, and sure enough, there is plenty of that, but with all this water, there is also another living universe existing in parallel and probably symbiotically with the larger arid environment.

I thought we might get bored just hanging out next to the river’s edge, but instead, we continued to see new things we’d not seen at first glance. Maybe our eyes came in looking to see routine and quickly accommodate our expectations of only seeing the surface of things, but the longer we are here, the more there is to see.

Another couple joined us riverside later this evening and a ranger from the Hualapai Tribe up in Peach Springs came in to check our permits; good thing we had dealt with that beforehand. A couple of other cars came to check out the view but left shortly after a quick look. With an ouch, we realize that the deer flies leave ugly and annoying bite marks; at least they’re not mosquitoes with their pesky whining sound. On second thought, I hate deer flies and would appreciate some mosquitoes instead.

Our campfire works to cook up our hot dogs, and we go into the evening much as we did the night before.