Just try to get a teenager out of bed at the break of dawn, but for us oldies, just try to get us to sleep past the sun creeping over the horizon. If yer gonna have a rustic cabin on the rim of the Grand Canyon and the porch has rocking chairs, you’d be a fool not to at least use those things for a minute or two, so while I tried taking photos into the sunlight that weren’t working, Caroline sat here tanning the soles of her feet watching me dart to and fro looking for the perfect photo that never happened.

Taking a walk over to the south-facing overlook offered up some nice views of the other side of the Canyon, but it wasn’t the same without our niece joining us, so we went back to the cabin and got her moving so she too, could witness how the sun floods into the Canyon and changes the way things look as the colors return to vibrancy.

This photo, while in shadows, is great on my computer monitor at full resolution, but looking at it here on my blog on my notebook screen where I’m writing, it leaves a bit to be desired. Hopefully, enough of the two ladies can be seen to prove that this was, in truth, our place for the night at least once in our lives.

We had an early appointment in front of the main lodge building where the girls were going to be taken up the road to the North Kaibab trailhead to meet their mules. Caroline is seen here mounting Cobra, who will take her down to the Supai Tunnel. Should you wonder about my motivation to post this particular photo, let me help you understand that, yes, I’m putting this here because I think that my 51-year-old wife still has it!

Cobra and Caroline going where I cannot because these mules don’t like fat asses such as myself. At 235 pounds I’m 36 pounds too big for them to safely transport me on the narrow, steep trails. Sad that this is my truth, but then again, I’m 50 pounds lighter than I was four years ago. By the way, doesn’t Caroline have about the greatest smile ever?

This was kind of like going whitewater rafting, where you get to the boat, get on board, and push off without much time to think about what you are going to do. The ladies weren’t on the mules for more than a few minutes before they were quickly following Kitty, the trail guide. I tried getting Katharina’s attention for a photo or two, but she was in the zone for riding and not posing. She’s right behind Caroline and Cobra here, riding Ellie.

Aunt and niece in the saddle for a truly Western experience, heading into the Grand Canyon on a summer day.

Down the dusty trail, they walked in single file as their cantankerous mules begrudgingly at times carried them forward. Going down, I was told things went quite smoothly.

But on the way back up, it seems the extra strain on the mules had them farting up a storm of noxious gas. If their butts could carry a note, they might have been singing as they worked hard to carry their charges back to the corral, where cool water and more food would be waiting for them.

We’ve started heading home, and although it’s early, we can be certain that we’ll be encountering some heavy traffic as during the summer, it often seems like half the city heads north to escape the heat. With so many people up north, they must all get themselves back home in order to go to work on Monday, so we can’t linger too long.

Even with time constraints, we can’t just speed past everything, so a stop at Lees Ferry was in order for Katharina to stand here at the point on the Colorado River where her aunt and I departed on our trip through the Grand Canyon nearly ten years ago.

Maybe because it’s about 100 degrees (38 Celsius), the water, while chilly, didn’t feel all that cold today. This was the first riffle we passed back in 2010, and from my perspective, in the dory, it looked like pretty big whitewater to me. Today, I can see that it’s really nothing at all but a small disturbance, yet back then, we were starting a major journey into something large and unknown, kind of like our niece, who is moving out of adolescence and onto university before starting a career that will hopefully offer her many opportunities in life to explore some things she could have never imagined.

Being on the Colorado River at the beginning of the Grand Canyon seemed like the perfect spot to set up for some horse photography, so Kat might take some very personal memories of this adventure.

The results Kat achieves with her model horses in natural settings are pretty awesome. Great eye, Katharina.

Navajo Bridge over the Colorado River is our last stop for photographs. From here, we need to focus on driving south, with a brief visit in Flagstaff at the Red Curry Vegan Kitchen for dinner, and then on to dealing with the heavy traffic that is the cost of traveling north during summer in Arizona.