grand canyon night three: indian gardens

We pitched our tent and settled in. Jesse spent an hour or more messing with his camera on the tripod (because if you're going to haul it down in the canyon then you better darn well use it) while I did some crossword puzzles. We like to work on crosswords together while we're camping but for some reason this book's puzzles were REALLY difficult. No fun. Maybe my brain was too far separated from letters and words at that point, but honestly I don't think so. One solution for 'Tiger's goal' was 'GRANDSLAMOFGOLF' and I only know that because I cheated and looked at the back of the book. Really? No indication that it was multiple words even? Really.

Nothing much more to say about the night other than that the mice were very busy. Climbing up the tent between the screen and the rain cover and scurrying all over the place. Oh, and the composting toilet had a huge cold breeze coming up out of it which gave me serious stage fright.

In the 'morning' Jesse's watch alarm went off well before light and we both dozed off for 45 minutes prior to actually getting going. It was cold and tempting to stay in the warm sleeping bag. Anyway we got packed up and had our oatmeal and coffee then started up the Bright Angel trail. Mules are allowed on this trail. I love mules, but they are hard on trails. They create a lot of dust - it's like walking through two-inch deep dry brownie mix.