We woke up a little after 7, in no hurry today, this being one of two days on the whole trip without a transfer. Around 8 we went to the small store across the street from our lodge, where we filled up the tank and also got some provisions for food today. Since food was limited anyway, plus the fact we planned on spending much of the day on the Walhalla Plateau, we decided to finally use our cooler. We bought some ice (8 lbs was pretty much a perfect size), and filled the cooler with sandwiches, tapas, etc. We saw they had wine, and told them we'd be back later to get some, but wondered if they had a corkscrew we could use. They were friendly but tepid, since they didn't have a license for serving alcohol. We figured the hotel would, so planned to come back just before getting back to the lodge.

On the drive to the Visitor Center we listened to some Stone Temple Pilots, and Crystal mentioned that when they first came out, the discussion surrounding them is that they had some songs that sounded like Nirvana, some songs that sounded like Pearl Jam, and some songs that sounded like Alice In Chains, but no real style of their own. We listened to the songs Justin had on his iPhone, and we could hear a decent amount of Alice In Chains, but only because we were listening for it. "Plush" sounded a bit like Pearl Jam, but again only because we were listening for it. And we didn't detect that much Nirvana. We started thinking about the various "grunge" singers, including Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Layne Staley (Alice In Chains), and how they are all dead - except for Eddie Vedder, who back in the early 1990s always seemed the most depressed of the bunch. A weird, sad, irony for so many people and friends and family.

At the Visitor Center, Crystal took out her computer, as on Wednesday mornings she has to do a very simple task for work, but today just happened to be the only day without wi-fi or cell signal in the room. So she took her computer over to a bench near the rim and did her five minutes of work, and Justin checked Twitter quickly to get a high-level idea of what transpired at the Presidential debate the night before. He saw a tweet from Jason Concepcion saying "What's the strongest drug I can take that won't kill me?" and that pretty much told Justin everything he needed to know. He did his Duolingo lesson, followed shortly thereafter by Crystal. It was hard trying to listen to the lessons with all the other tourists gasping and remarking at the Grand Canyon, and it was comical that we were angry at people for being excited about seeing it when we were trying to hear a foreign language lesson. Thankfully, we both finished our lessons in short order and we could go on with the rest of our day.

On the short walk down to Bright Angel Point, some winded people were coming back up, and saying hi to everyone, sans mask. One of the people even mentioned "there's a breath-y hi for you." We wondered if she was just oblivious, or if she was actively trying to give everyone Covid. Either way, we shook our head and lamented the future of this once-great nation. We checked out Bright Angel as well as a couple other viewpoints right around the North Rim Lodge, then got back in the car around 10 to head over to the Walhalla Plateau. The plateau is a peninsula that juts out to the very southeast of the North Rim, right around where the river turns from mainly north-south to mainly east-west. Cape Royal, at the end of the peninsula, is basically due north of Moran Point, which we visited our first afternoon at the South Rim. But on the east side of the Walhalla Plateau, most of the viewpoints are actually looking mostly to the east, looking at the northeast portion of the canyon that is visible only from here as well as Lipan and and Navajo Points. From everywhere else on the South Rim, the Walhalla Peninsula would block any view of the northeast part of the canyon.

Our first stop today was Point Imperial, the most northeast viewpoint on the plateau, with views to the north and east of the canyon. There was one-way traffic again today, and we had to wait to get on the spur heading to Point Imperial. Despite there being a line of about 10 cars waiting, some Subaru apparently thought we were all just parked for the hell of it, and attempted to pass everyone before being turned back by the construction workers. They got in line, and then left about 30 seconds before we got to go. Their loss. Once we got there, it was very quiet and peaceful at Point Imperial. Very conspicuous was Mount Hayden, which resembled a rocket ship. We hung out for a bit, then got back on the spur headed back to the main road to Cape Royal. We had to wait here as well, but we were in the shade and it was a nice day outside. It was supposedly 61, but it seemed much warmer than that.

At Cape Royal, it was far less crowded than at sunset the night before. We started at Angel's Window, walking out onto the viewpoint directly above the window itself. We tried to see the window, but since we were right on top of it, all we could make out was some sunlight that appeared to be coming through. We leaned over the railing a tiny amount, but we weren't going to lean out any more than that. At the Cape Royal viewpoint, the views of the Throne and the Temple were much better, as the sun wasn't directly behind them today. Also unlike yesterday, Justin went out on the ledge, past the fence, where a couple people had been the night before. The view was better out here, more unobstructed.

From Cape Royal, we began slowly backtracking on the road, stopping at whatever the next viewpoint was. The hope, as we'd discussed the night before, was that we wouldn't have to drive the entirety of the road in the dark again, which we both agreed was a good idea. Our first stop was an unnamed viewpoint just north of the Cape Royal parking lot. From there we proceeded not too much further, to the Walhalla Lookout, where we stopped for lunch. Crystal actually had to do some more work, as she got a notification when we got some signal around Cape Royal, so she grudgingly took out the computer. Justin mentioned "they're going to really miss you when we go to Spain; they'll probably do everything they can to keep you." Crystal didn't explicitly agree, but she didn't disagree either. The ice in the cooler hadn't melted at all, and lunch was pretty good - certainly the view was excellent.

We debated whether or not to do the hike to Cape Final, which was right near us. We'd tentatively discussed it last night, but we weren't totally feeling it at the moment. We drove past the turnout for the trailhead, but then Justin flipped the car around and we went back to the Walhalla Lookout such that we could quickly look at some photos and reviews before deciding 100% not to do it. After reading up and seeing some photos, Justin asked "can I twist your arm?" Crystal agreed in return for us leaving the area before sunset and having happy hour on the deck at the lodge. This seemed like a fair trade, so we agreed and drove to the parking lot for the trailhead.

The hike was well worth the trade. It wasn't near as long as the reviews stated, only about 45 minutes each way, on mostly flat ground (a former road for off-road vehicles) through a nice forest. At the end, we were at the eastern-most portion of the plateau, with 270 degree views. [The reviews we'd read an hour earlier mentioned having 180 degree views but also 360 degree views, which was kind of funny.] There were about a dozen or so people at the end, but there was the whole rim to spread out, so we stayed out of each other's way for the most part.

It was possibe to get some amazing panoramas of the east rim from here, and at sunset when the sun lights up the cliffs it must be even more incredible. But that was not on the menu, today. Wine on a deck overlooking a meadow was the agreed sunset plan. On the hike back, Justin detoured a couple times to some viewpoints facing northeast, telling Crystal he'd catch up. When he did, there was another detour. And when he caught up again, we were almost back at the car. These weren't as compelling as Cape Final itself, but had some interesting views due north that were a little different.

Back in the car, we changed back into our sandals, and then headed north on the road. The next stop was at Roosevelt Point. This was supposed to have an exceedingly short walk to a great lookout, but once we were there we didn't see anything approaching a hiking trail. Two men from Tennessee, one in his 30s and the other in his 70s, were trying to find it as well. We eventually found what we assume the trail was, but the payoff wasn't that great, but perhaps that was because we'd just come from Cape Final. The man in his 70s was moving really slowly, and we felt bad that he was trying to traverse this "trail" for a view that wasn't any better than some of the stuff he could have seen from the parking lot at Walhalla Lookout or Point Imperial. We felt even worse when we stopped at a pullout only a couple hundred feet from Roosevelt Point - on the north side of the horseshoe bend there - which had an even better view than Roosevelt Point. We hope the older gentleman eventually saw some good stuff. We had to wait, again, at the Point Imperial intersection, our third time today. The aspen trees, in the late afternoon sun, looked like they were on fire. Also on fire was a blunt for one of the people in the car in front of us - hopefully not the driver. From the way she was driving, however, it wouldn't be shocking.

At 5pm, on Lithium, a show came on with Tom Morello. Today he was on the air with him mom, who was celebrating her 97th birthday. We knew nothing about her before today, but now she's one of our favorite people. She left a small town in Illinois to travel around the world, met Tom's dad in Kenya, and moved back to New York and then to Illinois again (after divorcing Tom's dad), where she was a high school teacher and Tom was the first black man in town. During the late 80s and early 90s when Tipper Gore and her ilk were fighting against rap and rock groups and trying to censor them, Ms. Morello started a counter-group supporting the first amendment rights of such acts. We heard some old snippets of her introducing Rage Against The Machine at a concert with "The best fucking band in the universe" which was especially awesome coming from an older woman with a voice like a saint. She also mentioned how once, in New Orleans, after the band members were arrested and released only after some shady payoffs, at a concert the next day she told the huge crowd of thousands "fuck the Louisiana cops" and managed to avoid being arrested. She immediately became our hero. [To be clear, we have nothing against the Louisiana cops, but we find it awesome that anyone would scream this in front of a huge crowd, particularly as a little old lady.]

When we got back on Highway 67 from the Cape Royal road, it was getting close to dusk, and we had our eyes peeled for wildlife. First we saw quite a few deer, including a mom and baby. But then came the real payoff, three bison just chilling in the meadow. We hit the hazard lights on our car to give a head's up to those behind us that we'd be slowing down, and then we flipped the car around at the first available moment. We didn't get super close, but we didn't want to spook them and have them run off. We hadn't seen bison together ever, Justin hadn't seen them since he was in elementary school, and Crystal wasn't sure if she'd ever seen them. So this was pretty cool. We have a running dialog with Heidi about the line from the movie I Heart Huckabees, "what happens in the meadow at dusk?" Well, today we saw deer, bison, and aspen trees seemingly on fire.

Because of all the wildlife, we got back to the general store around 5:45. Unbeknownst to us, they were supposed to close at 5:30, but were nice enough to let us in. We bought two bottles of wine, and we bought a corkscrew just so we'd have one going forward. The proprietors told us that we were pretty lucky to see bison, as they weren't that common. We were back in our room, enjoying a bottle of Casillero del Diablo, just before 6. We watched some cows meander around in the meadow, hoping we might see some more deer or bison, but not minding if we didn't. After we finished the bottle, Crystal took a shower before dinner, such that her hair could dry before bedtime. At dinner, we had another of the Chipotle-type bowls, plus some white claws. We discussed some random subjects, such as what is the best flyover state (we immediately both thought of Colorado), second best state overall (we immediately both thought of Hawaii), Justin's story of purchasing a Body Count tape in 1992 in Washington DC and taking it to Russia where all sorts of people made bootleg copies, and Justin's story of having a perm in high school. We cannot remember how the stories progressed from one to the next, but we do remember they happened. Towards the end of the meal, the proprietor Christopher came by and asked if we wanted some pie for dessert. It sounded good, but when we asked if they had any ice cream, he slumped his shoulders and told us that they had none, and had no luck procuring ice cream from any of the local stores either. We were so excited for about five seconds there. As it was, we politely declined and then went back and went to sleep.