Saturday, October 24, 2015

Coming full circle

Now back in South Pasadena we have come full circle from the start back in August, but there still is more to go. Marina was able to score a solid job in Washington State, so now we finally know where we are going. After making it all the way from South Pas to Brazil and back, we are going to start the trip again along the same route, making some of the same stops for the first day or two before continuing north to Portland and on to Washington.

Before making it back to South Pasadena we stayed a few days in Austin to rest and get used to the states again. We were able to get in a good roll at South Austin BJJ, a great and very welcoming school that I look forward to going back to next time in Austin.

After leaving Austin we headed to the Grand Canyon for a couple days of hiking and camping, at least that was the plan. The first day we pushed to Albuquerque and finally got hit with cold and rain. Winter is going to be a rough adjustment from Hawaii. The next day we arrived at the campground inside the national park at the Grand Canyon, it was cold. Apparently, they were experiencing colder than usual temperatures and we did not have cold weather camping gear. After setting up the tent we put in 4 extra sweatshirts, a couple jackets and anything else that we thought might keep us warm. It turned out to not be enough.

Things started ok, it was cold but we got the fire going and had some dinner. Then is started to rain. Light at first, but it picked up and stayed consistent. We moved into the tent, watched some TV on the laptop (camping just isn't that hard anymore) and then after a couple hours and the rain not stopping decided to call it a night. Unfortunately we did not have enough warm gear and the night was pretty miserable. Marina froze going to the bathroom and I couldn't sleep because I refused to get up and held it all night. Needless to say we were up early the next morning.

We set out on a hike down the Kaibab trail and made it Skeleton point, 3 miles down the trail. It was an amazing hike with stunning views and lots of mule poop and mud. Everything you might want on a hike. We made it down and back in 3.5 hours with a 30 minute stop for lunch. When we got back we realized that it was supposed to be a 6 hour or so hike. I think our legs would have preferred if we took our time. 6 hours later on the drive to South Pasadena our legs were hurting...hiking and then driving are not a good combo. After the hike we decided that it was not worth camping our second night and got on the road.

After a 7 hour drive we were back at our starting point in South Pasadena and happy to not be cold through the night. Now its time to prepare for the last leg... to Washington.

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