I think it’s about time for another installment of The Great Road Trip of May 2009, especially considering the fact that it’s June already. I had intentions of getting these written right away, but Real Life has gotten in the way. But, it’s okay! This way, we can relive our trip for even longer!
You can read about the route we took and the first stop on our trip by checking these out:
The next stop on the list was a canyon…but it wasn’t just any ol’ canyon. It was The Grand Canyon.
It wasn’t only Grand, it was Awesome.
The three of us had never been there, and we were not disappointed. We’d purposely gone at the tail end of shoulder season (off season), because we didn’t want to deal with the crowds. We knew it would be a bit nippy at night, but that was a price we were willing to pay.
Even then, we were surprised at how many people there were! We can’t imagine it at the top of the season!
Because we were going so early in the season, it was easy to decide between the two rims: The North Rim or the South Rim. I’m not even sure most of the North Rim would be open that early, so the South Rim it was!
We’d decided to camp at The Grand Canyon. My husband and I love camping, and Claire had never been. (We tried to go camping last year, but were thwarted by a snow storm!) Well, it’s a good thing we like camping, because hotel rooms anywhere near The Grand Canyon cost an arm and a leg. (And, we wanted all of our appendages for the rest of the trip…).
If you decide to go to The Grand Canyon, I highly recommend staying overnight. There is so much to see, and it’s really “easy” camping.
We stayed in the Mather Campground. My advice is to reserve a camping spot before you go. If you go to recreation.gov, you can see maps of the campgrounds and reserve it right online. It was super-simple to go to the ranger cabin and check in when we got there. After a long day of driving, it was great to know we had a place to stay and that we wouldn’t be searching for something with a flashlight should our trip take a turn for the more adventurous. 
Because this would be Claire’s first time camping, I wanted something relatively close to the bathrooms. Now, this is where my husband starts muttering under his breath that there are no bathrooms in camping, and he’s right. When he goes on his Mondo Hiking Trips With The Guys, they can do camping “right.” They can hike 8-miles in to Base Camp. They can become one with nature and all that entails. I prefer “The Holiday Inn of Camping” (his words), especially when there is a preschooler in the mix. In the end, he’s a big talker, because he seemed to get over it pretty quickly.
Anyway, before the trip, I painstakingly searched for the perfect camping spot. I finally found one that was on a large lot, across the road from the bathrooms (Yes, there were flush toilets! Yay!) and was surrounded by RVs. Now, in the height of RV season, this may be annoying, but most parks regulate the running of the generators at night, and I had a feeling that this wouldn’t be an issue. It would allow us as much privacy as possible.
It was nice to see that the reality of the campsite matched what was on the online map! It was an awesome spot! (If I do say so myself…)
One of our friends let us borrow his tent. Correction: This thing was an apartment! For real!
It was 204 square feet! It was massive.
The Apartment Sized Tent
This is the tent WITHOUT the rainfly attached! That in itself has a vestibule that made it even bigger! The mattress behind us (on past the living room, next to the kitchen. Ha.) is a QUEEN SIZED BED. Needless to say, we had plenty of room. It was actually too big for us. BUT, we are so thankful that we got to borrow it!!
Our friend brought it to us a couple weeks before we left on the trip so that we could practice setting it up and taking it down by ourselves. I’m glad we did a dry run, because nothing adds stress to a trip quicker than wrestling with a humongous tent in a new environment (most likely in the dark and in the rain)…oh, and with a preschooler “helping.”
Speaking of rain…there was none! The weather on our trip was superb. We couldn’t have requested better weather! And, we arrived at the campground with plenty of light left to set up the tent.
So far, so good!
Stay tuned for the next installment of our trip: Grand is a pretty good way to describe it.
In the meantime, check out The Great Road Trip of May 2009 Category for more stories.
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I love reading about your road trip. You’ve given me some great ideas. I’m a “Holiday Inn” camper now too. The last time we tent camped was in the mountains and it was freezing, also a large animal (a moose maybe) was snorting outside our tent and I was sure we were going to get trampled! The next morning I told hubby and boys.. we are getting a cabin tonight! haha Did your little one like it?
Bonnie, Claire LOVED it! She keeps saying that camping was one of her favorite parts of the trip!