Hi Baby,
Woke up a couple of times during the night, once because the nearly full moon came up over the edge of the canyon and lit it up like daylight. Seriously, it was like having a sodium parking lot light right overhead! I got a bit cold during the night, and for some unknown reason I didn’t pack my long underwear, which I had planned to do but guess considering the daytime heat I didn’t figure I needed it, wrong! But I did have a pair of stretch pants I put on and that helped. I DID pack a wool cap, but wouldn’t you know, I couldn’t find it until this morning, it was about the only thing I didn’t move from my dry bag outside the tent into my tent! Oh, well, I still managed to get quite a bit of sleep. Didn’t wake up until almost 6:15, the coffee was done and breakfast was well on it’s way to being prepared, so I got, did my ablutions and started to pack up my stuff. Was almost done by the time breakfast was ready, and I was way ahead of the rest of the gang, they all got up much later than me. Another delicious meal, scrambled eggs, big fat sausages and bacon, two kinds of potatoes, they even had fruit and yogurt, too. Quite the buffet! After breakfast we got all packed up, this time on the motorized launch, which we then rode all the rest of the way. We stopped once so folks could jump into the water a float down the river for a bit, but I hadn’t put on my bathing suit this morning, and frankly, the river was still too darn cold for me, so I passed, but I got some good pix. We stopped again later for a hike up to Columbine Falls, another beautiful spring that pops out into a side canyon, and passed by the Skywalk way above us, a ring that reaches out over the canyon, then finally to the take out point just east of the current Lake Mead. Apparently the lake has evaporated so much that the shoreline is ever-changing. The exit point was Pearce Ferry in any event, a much better and shorter gravel road before we hit the tarmac. I had originally thought we would get back early enough for me to catch dinner at the Grotto near the hotel, then a cave tour, then another cave tour in the dark known as “The Ghost Walk,” since the cave is apparently supposed to be haunted by the ghosts of Indians buried there in the past. My driver worked very hard to get me there in time for the Ghost Walk, and we pulled into the parking lot at the Lodge at 5:45, just about two hours from the river’s edge, which gave me just enough time to get back to caverns for it. Unfortunately, THAT turned out to be a big waste of time and money. I was hoping for an experience that was at least fun, or entertaining, or educational or informative, but I got none of those. Maybe I was just too tired, or maybe the others on the tour were just too annoying for me. There were two young couples, teenagers, who did nothing but giggle and be stupid girlie, with one girl declaring she was afraid of the dark. I asked her why she would go on a cave tour that was in the dark if she was afraid of the dark, but all she did was giggle. Sorry, giggly girls like that annoy me. The other member of the group was older, maybe in his late 20’s, and he was a clown, hanging way back behind the group and making moaning sounds and fake Indian chants, one time a scream. The leader of the group wasn’t very good, either. He spoke so fast you couldn’t understand anything he said, and he used this really cheesy radio voice that demonstrated how bored he was with the whole thing. We were each carrying little flashlights and a “Ghost Meter” that was supposed to indicate when ghosts were present, and after the clown in back screamed, the group leader claimed that it upset the ghosts and they were flying everywhere out of “Mystery Cave” where they apparently lived. I asked if there was so much activity, why no one’s Ghost Meter was blinking or moving, and all he said was he didn’t know. He kept trying to have conversations with the ghosts and getting no answer, but he’d take pictures on his phone camera with flashing lights moving that he claimed were ghosts, but I had my video camera going all the time, and never got the same result. It just looked like the lights from the flashlights moving around. Same with a voice recorder, he would play back something he claimed was just recorded and tried to figure out what they were saying, and claiming they were touching him all the time. First he said the ghosts loved him, then he said he’d never come down alone because they would kill him, the whole thing was ridiculous. I was really hoping for a serious foray into the supernatural, but never even got a decent story of who the ghosts supposedly were and why they were there. It wasn’t even decent theatre, which I would have at least appreciated. Definitely not worth the money. Afterward I sent back to the hotel to get checked in, and the office was already locked. The sign on the door said to ring for service, so I did, repeatedly. Nothing. Then I started honking my horn for ten minutes, nothing. Then I saw a sign saying check for keys at the back door, so I went back there and found several envelopes with keys on them, but my name wasn’t on any of them. I had prepaid for two nights, and it seemed I had no way to get into my room. There wasn’t enough cell phone signal to make a call, so I drove back to the caverns to ask about it, and 15 minutes later the “manager” called the caverns to tell me to meet me back at the room. I drove the mile back and found her smoking outside the door of the room, wide open, so now my room smelled like cigarette smoke. I got my key from her, then after she left I checked the refrigerator for the milk I had left behind (I had discussed this with her numerous times, and she promised to keep it for me, since they weren’t offering breakfast anymore), so I had to go searching for her in the campground. She didn’t want to go to the office, which is apparently where my milk ended up, so she arranged with the kitchen to give me a cupful of milk. All in all, it took me nearly an hour and a half after the Ghost Walk ended to get into my room, so needless to say, by that point, I was NOT a happy camper! I had booked the room for Monday night as well, but decided I would leave the next morning. The Fairfield in Vegas was new, had much better amenities, including a free breakfast, a TV with many channels (the TV here gets almost none), a pool and lots of restaurants nearby, whereas this place doesn’t even serve breakfast because of the pandemic, and the nearest town with a restaurant or grocery store was 30 miles away. No contest! I had a bowl of cereal which I had to eat with my fingers because my spoon disappeared and I wasn’t about to waste any more time trying to track one down, and it wasn’t long before I was in bed, exhausted! Good night, babe! Love you!
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