Day 8

Woke up this morning and headed over to the community center for the lottery for The Wave.  They only pick 4 groups a day, up to 10 people, plus some pre-registered folks.  In total only 7,800 people get to hike to The Wave a year.  It is one of the most exclusive amateur hiking destinations in the US.  The odds of getting picked are extrememly low, very low.  We talked to people who have come every day for years to win, and are still waiting.  So of course, WE WON!  No joke, Spillane is getting his mojo back.

Winning was awesome, but definitely required some adjustments to our plan.  First, needed to go out and get some warmer hiking gear.  This was going to be a much more challenging hike for me.

Second, we had plans to go to the Grand Canyon today.  Yep, just a quick trip to the Grand Canyon.  So after the lottery and a quick trip to Walmart we headed down to the Grand Canyon, just a short 3 hour drive.

The Grand Canyon

What can you say, its the freakin' Grand Canyon.  Its huge.  I was expecting big, I was not expecting how deep it was.  Over a mile to the floor.  Its a two day hike.  We did not do this, but you could see the camp sites on the floor.

Another fascinating fact, at least in my opinion, is that there is over 2 billion years of rock history that is exposed in the canyon.  Thats half the life of the Earth, exposed in the strata.  Very awesome.

The last thing we hoped to do was some star gazing.  The Geminids meteor shower was at peak that night.  The moon was out again, so this was our plan.

• Quick dinner
• Get to bed early (required a few drinks to set in motion)
• Get up at 2am to get some stars in
• Drive 3 hours back to the trail head of the Wave
• Start our hike by 8am

And thats how it happened, a long day I will finish in the next post.  Picture to follow, there had not been great connectivity, and I have so, so many good pics