Mathers Campground - Grand Canyon

 We left Owl Canyon at 7:00 am this morning. Our destination was the Grand Canyon National Park, specially Mathers Campground. We will be here for two nights. We plan to explore the canyon tomorrow. 

We hadn’t expected snow and in talking with other campers it was a surprise to them as well. While it is nippy at 36 degrees it certainly is beautiful to look at from the warmth of our car.

The drive along I-40 was quite spectacular today. The speed limit in Arizona is 75 - we stayed at 70 most of the way to conserve on gas and because we like to look at the scenery. We were excited to discover two open rest areas on today’s drive in California. On our trip to and from Oregon in early March every rest area we passed was closed. We like to stop every hour to stretch our legs, have a bathroom break, and switch drivers.  Rest stops are a quick in and out, we usually find the restrooms to be well maintained, and we don’t feel obligated to purchase anything for using the facilities.

After driving in Arizona today, Joe commented and I concur that the roads in California are better maintained. Every mile Waze was calling out pothole warnings. We hit so many potholes that our Thule shell had shimmied to the drivers side of the car by the time we hit our campsite. Maybe it’s just I-40…

I made soup for lunch today with our 40 oz water pot that plugs into the car lighter. It takes about 30 minutes for the water to get hot. I added some dehydrated vegetables and beef bouillon.to our Yeti bottles and poured the hot water over the veggies. It took another 15 minutes for the veggies to rehydrate. Yum! The soup turned out to be tasty. Joe ate bread with his soup while I went for crackers and cheese. We ate dried apricots and a few dates to round out our meal. The dehydrated vegetables are an experiment. We have found that while traveling three meals a day are too much food. Three small snack size meals work better for us. We save time and money and can make healthy choices with our plan.

Internet for my computer is more cumbersome than using my phone so I am hoping the blogs are readable. With limited spell check and editing tools, the proofreading is hit and miss. My brain fills in missing words when I read through and inevitably I hit post and see an error. Works like a charm.