Giddy Up Suicide

yesterday i spent 7 hours sitting on the back of a mule. my guide, who introduced himself as "poncho" thought it would be funny to tell me that my mule was named suicide, not expecting my response of "awesome, i was hoping my mule would have a badass name." turns out her name is shannon, and she is a pretty good mule. (however, at no point did i use the words "giddy up" or attempt to make her travel at a faster pace.)

about 1/2 an hour down, i decided that i'd had enough of mules and if poncho would just let me off to pee (which would've been interesting on the side of a trail about 2 feet wide with cliff on both sides) i didn't care if i ever saw another mule again. after another hour, we had our first stop to pee, refill our canteens, and get hosed down to combat the heat. there are six distinct climate zones within the grand canyon and the temperature at the bottom is sometimes 20-30 degrees warmer than at the top. the only thing better than riding a mule is doing it with wet underwear. but after this stop, the trip was more comfortable so i stopped being cranky.

we dismounted for lunch at plataeu point, where you can see the colorado river. we were about 1/2 way down, and even there its hard to believe that the river is over a mile across in some parts. the views were incredible.

the lady in front of me in the mule train, paula, made it clear at the beginning of the ride that she had voted to spend the family vacation in mexico, and was only on this mule ride to humor her husband who apparently was fulfilling a lifelong dream on our trip. she was hilarious. but she was really nervous about plodding down the tiny trail on a clumsy mule. it was perfect for taking in the scenery though -- i didnt have to look where i was going, and i was confident that shannon didn't want to die. although she did walk VERY close to the edge sometimes and made extremely wide turns. here's a picture of shannon and goldie gazing nonchalantly at the trail we just went up.

another joy of riding behind paula was that her mule is the gassy-est mule EVER. i, of course, handled this very maturely by giggling hysterically everytime goldie ripped one. which was like every five minutes. goldie obviously had a very high fiber diet. poncho told paula she was on the cadillac escalade of all mules ahahaha.

on the way back up, we had to stop twice while helicopters came in to rescue people. poncho informed us that the first person died (heart attack) because they carried him out in a basket attached to the helicopter, and the second person did not (fell from rim) because they put him into the helicopter to "work on him" on the way to the hospital. i am glad to hear that if you are foolish enough to need a helicopter to retrieve you -- and the majority of people are stupid rather than unlucky -- the park service will send you a $4000 bill.

although it was touch-and-go for a while, i passed the mule-riding test! i'm sure my mom will be proud to frame this and put it next to all my dean's scholar certificates and law degree.

getting up at 5AM even had its perks -- i saw about 30 elk on my way to the park, just hanging out on the side of the road. they are HUMONGOUS. not the run-of-the-mill louisa county white-tailed deer i'm used to.

last night i had key lime pie for dinner, with a glass of milk and took a walking tour of williams to see all the old buildings and whorehouses. today is a day of rest. i have no idea what's on my itinerary and i don't care. probably i will have a piece of pie for breakfast at the pine country restaurant, and eventually mosey my way over to flagstaff for the rest of my trip.

p.s. good news from the real world: i've had 2 offers to publish my article on responding to sea level rise! woo hoo.