We got up a little after 6:30. We'd considered getting up for a sunrise, but 1) the sunset last night had been incredible, 2) sunrise is a lot colder than sunset, and 3) we wanted some sleep. We got our gear together, then took a short ride into the park at around 7. On the drive in, Crystal saw two deer, but Justin couldn't take his eye off the road to see them. As we hoped, the parking lots at the park were empty at that time of the morning. We found a spot that we hoped would be conspicuous enough to easily find later in the day, then took out the backpack (mostly full of water) and started walking.

We came out on the rim near Mather Point, with the plan to slowly walk west until we didn't feel like walking any more. While we missed sunrise, it was still very low in the sky, with long shadows being cast by the high points. We could look pretty far west, and as far as we could tell, it was all canyon - we weren't sure how much further to the west the canyon continued. Unlike yesterday, the viewpoints were much closer together, with a walking trail to connect them. We slowly meandered from Mather Point to Yavapai Point, stopping whenever something caught our attention, which was pretty regularly.

On the drive this morning, as well as yesterday, we'd seen several cars pulled over on the side of the road, not anywhere near any viewpoints. There were people who looked like they were hunting or scavenging for something. This morning we saw a blue bird doing the same thing, and Crystal realized that the pine trees were probably dropping pine nuts, which the people (and the birds) were grabbing. In addition to that blue bird, we saw a number of other birds, including a yellow-orange one that was eating upside down in one of the trees. We also heard some large mammal that we couldn't place, but then when a couple horses walked by we realized we'd just heard the horses whinnying earlier. There were a decent number of people out, most of them doing generally what we were doing, as we kept seeing a lot of the same people along the way. But it was by no means crowded, and it was easy enough to stay far enough away from everyone.

As we approached the hotels (El Tovar, Kachina Lodge, Bright Angel Lodge) there were more people around, people up getting coffee and milling around. We also saw the Bright Angel trailhead, which is one of the main trails that people take to get down into the canyon, and, in some cases, cross it. We had discussed whether we had any interest, either here or at the North Rim, heading down a bit into the canyon, and both of us had almost zero interest doing that, so it was good we were on the same page. As about a million signs indicated, going down into the canyon means you're leaving the strenuous part for the end, and many people underestimate how far they've gone down and need to come back up. Right near the trailhead there was a flagpole flying at half mast, we assume for RBG.

This was the west end of "civilization" - any further to the west was either along the rim or along the road that was closed to private vehicles. This was also the place to catch the bus that could drive you out to the further viewpoints. So we got in line for the bus, spaced 6 feet apart from the people in front of us. The buses were operating on a much-reduced volume, with many seats roped off, but we were near the front of the line, and at the first/last stop, so we were able to get on with little problem. But we noticed at the next stop that people wanting to head west were out of luck, because no one on the bus was getting off, which meant by definition there was no room on the bus. So we made a mental note to go at least a couple stops, such that we could reasonably hope of there being room when we got back on.

We got off at Hopi Point, which we'd read was good for sunrises and sunsets. It was late morning when we got there, but we could see why it might be good at either sunrise or sunset, because it jutted out a little further north than most places, giving it good views to both the east and west. There were very few people at Hopi Point, and once we started walking west towards Mohave Point, there was almost no one. Almost. There were three women, and a dog, and our best guess is that some/all of the women were "influencers" or at least people who wanted to be influencers. They were talking very loudly, apparently to the video camera on their phone and their "fans" about how great it was to be out in nature. If only they cared about whether those around them could enjoy nature. But, then again, being utterly selfish people with little regard for others is why - over six months after Covid broke out - everyone was still under various states of lockdown and the US numbers show no sign of decline.

Once the instagrammers walked back the other way and we got the rim to ourselves, it was pretty spectacular. There was a steep cliff, the Hopi Wall, down to the bottom of the canyon. Because the wall was more vertical, this seemed to attract way more birds (or perhaps it was just coincidental). There were ravens flying everywhere, and with no other sound around, we could hear them flapping their wings and even hear them just gliding by - it sounded a bit like an arrow flying by. Also around Mohave Point we had pretty good views of the river to the west. At Mohave, we waited for the bus, and didn't care whether it was heading west or east. We figured we'd let fate decide. It was heading west, so we continued that way to Pima Point.

On the drive to Pima we overheard the bus driver talking with one of the guests. The bus driver started her (second) career as a bus driver at the Vancouver winter olympics in 2010. After that, she moved to driving a bus at Bryce, and is now at the South Rim. She stated her family was originally from Austria, and that this is her retirement job. The scenery is great, but we have to assume driving when there is snow and ice around has to be kind of dicey. On the drive, the driver mentioned that the stop "The Abyss" is called that because there is a 3500 foot vertical drop right there. We tried to see it from the bus, but couldn't make it out. At Pima, we got out briefly, and saw some rapids in the river. The bus driver had mentioned that all of the rapids in the river are caused by huge dump of debris during storms, mudslides, landslides, etc. Apparently all rapids on the Colorado River are created that way. We got a bus back to Bright Angel a little before noon, we're pretty sure with the same driver.

So far, all our research had been on point, and we'd been very efficient in traveling around Sedona and the South Rim. At this point, however, we had a bit of a hiccup. Normally there is a "blue line" bus that drives around in the Grand Canyon Village area, and we could catch that to get back to the parking lot where our car was. But the blue line was not running because of Covid, so we'd have to walk back to the car - 2.5 miles away. Rather than take the leisurely walk along the rim, we took the direct route through the village, walking on a road with a view of nothing, and the sun beating down on our heads and necks. Plus it was lunch time and we had no plans on what to eat, but knew our choices were probably limited. So, not great, but with the big caveat that we'd had an amazing morning. We got back to the car around 1:00 and cranked the air conditioning.

In Tusayan, we got in line for the Wendy's, and then took the food back to our hotel room where we scarfed it down. We did our Duolingo lessons, checked some pictures and videos, put some extra memory cards and batteries in our bags (Justin had run out of space on one of his cameras at Pima), and watched some NFL Redzone on the laptop. We also discussed what to do the next day. We had already seen quite a bit at the South Rim, and we were going to the North Rim in a couple of days, so we planned to leave as soon as we got up. Because of this, Justin raised the idea of going to Winslow on the way to Monument Valley, as it was "only" an hour out of the way. He said he was about 40% interested in doing this, but wanted Crystal's take. She was also less than 50% interested, but also had an open mind.

In the late afternoon we got ready to go back into the park, this time to the east side to see the couple places we hadn't seen yesterday. Our first stop was at a little viewpoint (no name we saw) near Yaki. From there we went to Grandview Point, which was nice, but at this point so many of the viewpoints seemed pretty similar to one another. When we got back in the car and turned on the engine, literally the first thing we heard from the radio was "Well, I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see..." We looked at one another and wondered if was some sort of sign. We headed east, but realized pretty soon that there were no more viewpoints to the east that we hadn't seen already, so we turned around to head back towards Yaki. We narrowly avoided hitting a bird that flew down into the street right in front of us, so we hoped that earned us some good karma.

We parked the car right near the intersection of the road to Yaki, and just started walking down the road. We figured this was fine, and when we saw other people walking, we felt more confident of it not being an issue. One family turned off onto a side trail, and we had the whole road to ourselves. It was really quiet, and so Justin said "I wonder if we'll see the deer that were right by here last night?" About a second later Crystal exclaimed "Deer!" There was a lone female deer about 20 feet ahead of us, just chewing on some plants. We actually had to cross the road to get further away. So maybe we did earn some karma. Despite so many of the viewpoints being called "points", Yaki actually is very clearly on a point, with its ridge extending a good amount from the rest of the rim, meaning that we had good views in about 270 degrees of view.

Out to the east the setting sun was illuminating "Wotan's Throne" and "Vishnu Temple", two prominent rock formations in the middle of the canyon, just in front of the north rim. Crystal set up her GoPro to take a time-lapse of the sun going down, but couldn't get the timing quite right. Justin was looking the other direction, towards the southwest, with deep vertical walls. Justin thought he saw an owl nearby, but it was a fake owl that someone had placed in a tree for who knows what reason. The sunset, while very nice, did not hold a candle to the night before. We walked briskly back to the car, as we didn't want to be walking in the pitch black. We got back to the car with small amount of light left, and then took the short drive back into Tusayan. On the way back, Crystal saw a big male deer with horns, but Justin again missed it.

We got back around 7, and walked straight to Plaza Bonita, a Mexican restaurant we'd seen "decent" reviews of. Unlike last night, there was no wait tonight, and we got a table outside. Eventually some of the tables near us filled up, and one of them had a couple of dogs that were having a good time, even if their owners were not. We think they might have had a fight, but we weren't really paying attention. We were focused on our margaritas, as well as Justin on his chile colorado and Crystal on her steak salad. Justin tried out some of his Spanish, and as far as we can tell, didn't offend anyone with a wrong phrase or word. There were some Saints fans just inside the restaurant near us, and they were pretty excited at some points, but then quiet, and we took that to mean the Saints had lost their game to the Packers. By the time dinner ended, it was actually a tad chilly. Back at the room, we unlaxed for a little bit, then got to sleep around 10.