Saturday October 26, Still at the North Rim

Slept in late this morning, and both feeling a bit jaded so decided to stay put and have a rest day. It is such a peaceful spot and seemed to be a good place to relax.

Had a clean up in Ruakiwi, while Ian pottered around. Walked this afternoon along a trail and back through the campground and at 4pm Ian lit a campfire after finding a big log just ready to be split. Enjoyed sitting around it, and were joined by our neighbour Mark as we watched the sun set around 6 oclock. By then the temps were dropping, very happy to retreat back inside and put the heater on.

Hardly used the camera today, but a photo of one of the fires that is still smouldering in the trees not that far from camp.

I mentioned at the start of this trip that we bought a Verizon Hot Spot unit, about the size of a cell phone, and it has proved to be a real bonus. It picks up wifi almost everywhere and much of the time it is 4G, suspected that we wouldn’t get coverage in the National Parks but have been surprised at how good it has been. Even here we have a reasonable 3G coverage. We pay $60/month for 3GB, and this is prepaid so haven’t needed to sign up for a plan, would recommend for anyone spending time travelling in the US. Often think back to 2008 at the start of our travels, how much time we would spend finding wifi so that we could get news from home and load the blog. Now it can usually be done while we are camping, or on the road.