Today was our lay-over and rest day. We did not get very much rest, however, and seemed to be constantly on the go.

The people in the campsite just north of us had reservations for breakfast at Phantom Ranch but they decided they wanted to start their hike out early and did not want to use them so they gave them to us. Now how cool is that! The breakfast was the early seating, at 5 am, and I really did not think Maggi was going to buy into this but she did. No sane person passes up a free breakfast at Phantom Ranch but... well? OK, we won't go there. We got up at 4:45 and went to breakfast at the ranch thinking we would just come back afterwards and go back to sleep. That didn't happen.

We ended up putzing around camp for a little while after breakfast and then headed down to the boat beach at the Colorado River for a while. We watched a river party come in, a pack train come down, a mule party go up, took lots of photos, and then just sat in the shade under a tamarisk and palm tree and talked... and watched the lizards playing. We walked along the shore to the confluence of Bright Angel Creek and the Colorado River and took some more photos then we hiked back along the creek to where it rejoins the trail.

After a brief stop back at the campsite we headed up to Phantom Ranch for some more lemonade and so that Maggi could send out some postcards. After that we went for nice 4-mile day hike up along the North Kaibab Trail to Phantom Creek and then followed that about a mile back. We brought stuff with us for lunch and had a nice picnic along the creek. There was lots more lizard watching and we even discovered a little frog that was quite fascinating. It turned out to be a leopard frog which had apparently had been on the decline in the inner Canyon for several years and is now making a come back.

We got back to Phantom in time for the afternoon ranger program---about condors this time. After that we went back to camp, gathered up everything we needed for dinner and went back down to the Colorado River to cook and eat and watch the sunset. It was absolutely wonderful.

After dinner to we went to the evening ranger program which was about Grand Canyon trail history. We talked with the ranger after the program and offered to help her carry some of her gear back to the ranger station. At one point we got talking about the web site and then all of a sudden it was "You're Bob!?" It turns out she is a big fan of my web site. Yay me! She gave us Popsicles! Ice cold Popsicles at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? it does not get much better than that.