I apologize for posting this twice. If you saw the first one, I had a version problem and deleted the wrong one, so then I had to rewrite what I wanted to post. I’m learning the ropes again and things are a little different from what I remember. So here is the story I wanted to share, take two.

In 2023 we drove to Arizona for a great road trip and the sites and experiences of a lifetime. We did an overnight rafting trip with a tour in the Hualapai tribe part of the canyon. It was a challenge to do all this. We had to wear life jackets and do exactly what the guide said. Because there weren’t quite enough spots for everyone to paddle, a few of us would ride on the transport boat with the gear which was nice for relaxing and taking pictures. I started off that way because the first rapids were huge. Not quite ready for that, I was able to watch the action from a safe distance.

When I was on the action raft, right at the end of our run, the guide said, when I say paddle on the left, everyone paddle as hard as you can on the left side, otherwise we’ll hit “the wall.” The what?! Well, we all were ready, and we did exactly as he said. A rapid catapulted us toward a plume of water that was hitting the rock wall like an upright waterfall. Our efforts to avoid it failed, and we were drenched. It was so fun. I couldn’t photograph hitting the wall of water, but here’s an action sequence I pulled out of a video I took of the other group.

At the end of the day we all felt great about what we did and were ready to relax at camp.

The landscape at the campsite included dunes and these wispy trees.

At night it was nice and dark and we saw beautiful stars. There was a lunar eclipse, but our view was limited by the canyon, and we didn’t see that. It was still beautiful, as was watching the morning sun on the mountains.

The canyon walls are so steep. The rock changes constantly and on the second day the walls began to get lower.

These last shots were taken looking back at the canyon after floating out. It’s weird, it’s so huge, but then it ends and everything is flat.

It was a great experience, and the next day we went to the rim and did a sunset tour. I’ll post a few pictures of that next.