First: Happy Birthday to my Dad!!

I’d never been to the Grand Canyon before today (except for vicariously through the Brady Bunch). Decided to book a guided tour – they know all the things, all the best places to stop, and most importantly, they do all the driving.

On our drive to the GC, our guide, Scott, shared his encyclopedic knowledge of the GC and every single tree and plant in it. I now know all about the mullen plant. You can boil the leaves down to make your own Neosporin. You can also buy Neosporin at CVS.

Also learned all about the Piñon pine tree. About this time of year, it drops pinecones – with pine nuts inside. I’m not sure where I thought pine nuts came from, but it sure wasn’t a pine tree. Native Americans are allowed to come into the park and harvest them. It’s a very labor intensive process to harvest and process them. I now understand why pine nuts are so expensive. We found a couple. They do not taste good right out of the pine cone. Ask Ken how he knows.

At the first scenic stop inside the park, I had my Chevy Chase moment: Yep. It is GRAND, indeed. Very difficult to put into words how incredibly vast and majestic this place is. Looking at 1.8 billion years of nature on display. Reminds you how small your place in the universe is.

Sidebar: how much of an entitled asshole do you have to be to think it’s ok to graffiti your name into a national park? Addison: go fall on a cactus.

Made a brief stop at GC Village, which was a fresh hell of tourists. No way you could get me to stay there. We were told summer is 10x worse. That’s a real quick no for me.

We saw a small herd of elk as we were leaving the park. Also saw a small herd of dumb ass people stopping their cars in the middle of the road to get out and try to get a selfie with a 1,000 pound wild animal. At this level of dumbassery, if that bull elk drop-kicks you to the moon, I feel zero sympathy for you.

In summary: If you haven’t seen the GC, it’s worth the trip! Make it happen. In the off-season.