We got up around 8 & had the dorm-food-like (but with fewer choices) Moqui breakfast buffet, then laboriously made reservations for a 2:30pm small plane ride on a single-engine Cessna over the park. Then we went into the park & found a nice spot for Norman before walking along the rim trail from West Rim Junction to Maricopa Point, about a mile & a half. We enjoyed the views & took pictures, & then hopped on the shuttle bus & stopped at all the remaining look-out points; Pima & the Abyss were our favorites. Robert liked the abandoned copper & uranium mine at Powell's Point.

One of the highlights of the bus trip was a 10-year-old girl who eagerly admired my ''Herbi the Love Bug'' socks, & kept trying to give her brothers punch-buggy punches on my account. We took the bus to the end & then back, & then drove to the airport (just south of our motel) to catch our plane.

Pictured on this page are what I like to call the "Whoa" picture (think Matrix) as Robert stares over the edge and several different sunset views.

We ate sandwiches + a mango in the bustling lobby of the main terminal of the Grand Canyon Airport while we waited for our group to leave. Almost completely silent chaos ensued as many different Japanese tour groups tried to sort themselves out (the coded-neon stickers everyone in the place wore on their shirts didn't seem to help much). The plane, not quite as wide as Norman, seated the pilot & six passengers; Robert & I sat immediately behind the pilot, so everyone had a window seat & cushy headphones (see photo) to drown out some of the noise. The ride lasted about 50 minutes, & went all the way to the North Rim (much greener) & back.

We absolutely loved the ride--we'd been on a helicopter before, in the Badlands, but never a small plane, & here we saw much more by the plane than we could've seen in a similarly-priced helicopter ride. We took 130 photos on the trip (a record, according to our chatty pilot, Jesse), though 80 were deleted almost immediately because the motion of the plane made hands unsteady (except for Robert's clammy left hand, which never ceased gripping the hand rail). I had my nose positively pressed against the window the whole time, & took pictures continuously, on the ''better to have & not need than need & not have'' premise. After the flight, we drove to the small Tusayan Museum (they close at 5pm) & took a short self-guided tour of the partially excavated ruins of an Anasazi (think X-Files) village, ca. 1125 C.E.

Then we drove back to Grand Canyon Village, stopping at all remaining outlooks along the way, walking about 5 minutes' down Grand View Trail, & watching most of the sunset at Mather Point, before going to the main visitors' center to see the exhibits & watch a slide show. This visitors' center is pathetic compared to Zion or Glen--it was a boring 1950s building which was about 10degrees hotter than outside. In general, though I loved the views of the Grand Canyon & am glad we came, I can't recommend it as a vacation destination at this point--it's a terrible combination of jam-crowded, unimproved, lacking in facilities, & over-commercialized. Later this year, when the complete light-rail/bus system goes into place, & a new visitors' center is built, things should be better, but right now there is the worst of all possible worlds with a partially-implemented, erratic, hopelessly understaffed bus system, a saturation-level amount of people, & too few parking spots. Go to Zion, to see how a shuttle system can work very well--go to Zion anyway for a -vacation-, not just a view, with no crowds or hassles at all.

Other highlights of our day include scraping my leg on a tree root on the rim trail, discovering the Grand Canyon has both a school & a church inside the park, seeing a FedEx truck (sign of civilization), getting even more fast food (our last real meal was Sunday at Shintaro. We're not really sure what we've eaten since then or whether we even had any vegetables), & discovering, for the record, that there are two whole evening activities in Tusayan--the Grand Canyon Imax (last show 8:30pm daily) & moonlight bowling, six lanes, on the first floor of the Best Western at the edge of town. Classy hotel, that Best Western.

Rather than do either, however, we set our heart on some discounted homemade fudge at the place just outside the Imax theater. Normally $12 & $6/full & half pound, with an Imax ticket stub the price drops to $7 & $4 respectively. Though we were certain some stubs must be going to waste, we couldn't find anyone who had just seen the movie & wanted to give us theirs. And yes, we asked (think of the famous "Need two" tickets story and you'll figure out how successful we were). Our best prospects, two chubby middle-aged men, were sympathetic upon hearing about nearly half-price fudge, but explained that their wives had their stubs. Sadly, we went back to the lovely Moqui Lodge (whatever they say, ceiling fans just do not cut it for a cool nights' sleep out here) to watch tonight's two-hour Lexx.