Its like I'm enjoying this third tour or something?

Its either I've been enjoying it more or goofing off or too tired to sit and type (which is no excuse right?!) This blog is all over the place, many days worth of writing and then finally a posting!

I'm now sitting in Tusayan AZ outside Grand Canyon National Park. I drove a couple of guests into the park very early today so they could attempt the river. Its a long walk down to the Colorado and then back up again. While I was driving in we saw this huge bull Elk. What a beauty he was! He was just wandering along the road have a little breakfast. Pretty neat, I haven't seen many Elk on this trip or any others really.
The rest of the group will be going on the helicopters at 10 am and then we'll all head into the park for some hiking. They stopped the Tusayan Shuttle so coordinating the drive out has been tougher than usual.

We left Tsegi (Anasazi Inn) in a downpour! They had given me a hard time because I'd said to them "bring your rain coats for Monument Valley" and then it was a beautiful evening there. But I wasn't sure since I'd been there twice when a rain storm came through.

Lets see, looks like I stopped typing at Zion.Yes, to follow up my last comment on that last blog. The next day (we had until 2 pm to chill out before we went to Bryce) I got up early and went into the park with one of the guests to see the sunrise in Zion. Amazing! What a beautiful place that is! Then we decided to head up the river walk to see if we could find the tarantulas that live there. He says they are nocturnal and that we'd likely have missed them but we went and looked anyways. We found a mom and baby deer on the trail and that was nice. No spiders though :( After that we decided we were hungry so we went out to Springdale and had breakfast at the hotel, it was really nice, we talked and talked and then we went and sat by the pool (in our hiking clothes and boots~no suntanning!) and chilled out and chatted some more.
I drove us to Bryce Canyon next. We got there mid afternoon and I drove them into the park to have a look around and we watched the sunset for a little while and then I decided to get moving so we'd beat the buses to dinner at Ruby's, it couldn't have worked out better. There was a disabled bus that was running really slowly and being followed by a ranger so we luckily got right behind him and I could see in my mirror that the buses were all behind me so I got the group primed to run into Ruby's while I parked and they got a table.
The next day we had the entire day to hike etc so I got them all into the park and found a spot to put the van and we all parted ways for the day. I went for a hike with two of the better hikers and we did the Fairyland Loop Trail. 8.4 miles it turned out to be. I didn't know that going into it or I might have thought twice. It was really a scenic walk. Lots of up and downs and the one guy kept saying, its just up that last hill there (trying to motivate me) and then we'd get there and there would be another hill. We got to the "top" finally, only to discover that it was still another 2.7 miles to the beginning of the trail and my lunch feast!! Sad face!

**Well, after all this writing I did, I walked away from this post and its now been a week. I'm back in San Francisco again and happy to be done and going home for a little relaxing and major job hunting. My last tour ended up really well. Lots of mistakes again.

Bryce turned out to be everyones favorite park. Which is saying something. I think having an entire day there to really see it helped alot. After Bryce was Lake Powell. That was a new stop for me. We left Bryce in the morning and headed to Page AZ. We got there with enough time to walk to the Horseshue Bend in the Colorado River, just past the Glen Canyon Dam. It was only a 3/4 mile trail and worth the view.

Then we went and spent some time at the dam visitor center and then headed to the hotel. We were there in plenty of time to enjoy the pool and have a drink before dinner. Since there were so many people there we split up and got our own tables etc. I was with two of my guests and we had a really yummy dinner and some drinks. What a nice place that was. The hotel sits up on the north side of the lake and is right on the lake. Since the weather was so hot it was a really great evening to stroll the sidewalks and sit on the bench and relax. The one photographer in the bunch was showing me how to set my camera to take a moon shot etc. That was pretty neat.

The next morning we got up early and went to Antelope Canyon for a tour! What an awesome place! We stopped by the office and Bonnie picked us up in this hilarious "jeep" which was again, a pickup truck with bench seats in it. Then she hauled butt to the canyon entrance, which you can drive right up to (not us but the guides) and since I was so early with the reservation we were able to have the canyon to ourselves for most of the time. By the time we left it was so crowded you could hardly get through the narrow bits. The crowds weren't a big deal if you were taking pictures up but trying to get the actual canyon without people would have  been hard to do. Its an awesome place. I mean really really cool!
We all managed to survive the event (mostly the driving) and then went on down the road towards Monument Valley. As you can imagine this was my favorite day of the tour! There was no rain this time in Monument Valley and the weather was just right. We had a great time, they all really liked John our guide and we were able to see the sunset while in the park. The best part was seeing the moon rise though. How awesome! It was so bright! Our dinner and entertainment was on a different side of the Raingod Mesa so it was all new to me this time. We had Elroy as our dancer but Harold as our singer story teller. It was great! Absolutely loved it! I think the group did too. They all mentioned it in their evaluations.
The rest of this trip until the last day was the same itinerary I'd done. We stopped at Navajo National Monument and then to Grand Canyon. We stayed in time for sunset the first day and then headed to the hotel for some dinner and bed time. The next morning we had a bit of a lay in and then Helicopters at 10 am (which is too late really) one of my couples chose not to do the flight so I got up really early and took them into the park so they could go hiking into the canyon. They planned to hike to the river and back so they got an early start. I took them in at 6:30am They managed it and were really happy about having the chance to do that.

For my Grand Canyon adventure this time, I took the red shuttle bus out to Hermits Rest. A new part of the park I hadn't been to basically. I decided I'd go out to the end of the line and then walk back along the rim. It's a 7 mile walk. About 5 miles in I decided to go catch a bus and go relax on a porch somewhere. Unfortunately for me everyone had that same idea so I just kept walking. I went to the El Tovar Lodge where the rocking chairs and benches are usually empty but there was people everywhere.

I will say that the walk along the rim in that section of the park is pretty wild, you're literally hiking at your own risk, the edge is very close. If you were to be lollygagging and looking around you'd fall into the canyon. No joke. I finally had to stop and look around every now and then so I wouldn't wander over the edge. Wow.

I decided we'd do our final dinner together in Grand Canyon since we'd all have things to do in Las Vegas so we ate at Yippee Ei Oh. Man, they cook a mean steak!! We had a great time, great laughs and tons of food! It was really fun!
Route 66 day was a bust really. I didn't get a sense for their expectations and spent too much time stopping at the fun stuff. They just wanted to get to Vegas. I messed that up really good. I should have just given then a quick drive around and then off we'd go. By the time we got to Hoover Dam they were tired of traveling, tired of the heat and ready to get to Las Vegas. It was really bad. I had one couple that had tickets to a show at 7pm, which I thought I'd have no trouble pulling off. Yeah, they were running to the box office to get their tickets at will call. They only had 5 minutes to spare. Ugh.

I went to Ross and bought some 10 dollar shoes to wear with my black dress. I put in my clip in hair and off I went with one of the guests to have a look around. She was really excited to be there and it was really fun. Her and I and another guest had a snack at a place called "Snacks" in the Bellagio, then we had drinks at "First" in the Venetian and then we wandered on back to the hotel. I'll tell you, around 3am the streets are empty, its really weird. People are still inside and the casinos are still busy but the streets are not. It was really a weird time to be out and about.

Once I got them all dropped off at the airport (which was really sad~again) I drove to the Rio where I waited for another guide who was coming through, so we could switch vans. His van was blowing out hot air from the back A/C vents. Ugh, can you imagine? Going through Death Valley which was already hot and having hot air blowing. I don't know how they managed that!

I had a great drive back to SF this time. I stopped in this little town called Baker. I really liked it there. The worlds tallest Thermometer and then the Alien Fresh Jerky store (Abducted Cow Teriyaki, BBQ on the Moon, Space Cowboy Pepper). What a hoot! I made it as far as Bakersfield before I had to pull over and get a room. I slept for 12 hours (its my own fault~ Vegas did it to me) and then on to San Francisco.

On my way past Hayward I stopped to say hello and goodbye to Walter. Poor guy, I'm always just passing through. We had a nice visit and then I got back to the office and repacked for my flight home on Tuesday.

All together I'd say this tour was okay. I've been thinking about why I struggled with 12 again. I think partly because I had some complainers in this group, they were jelly-fishers, people who'd seem happy and quiet and then zing you with a comment about something they didn't like. Ugh. that was tough. The other reason i struggled with this group was that I'd try to keep them ALL happy and it was impossible. Since there were enough singles in this bunch to have 12 different opinions I couldn't pull it off. They wanted bossy, leadership and whip cracking and I kept saying things like, "well, lets do this instead of that" I was so successful with my last bunch because it was the mom and dad and the single guy making the decisions for everyone and that was much easier. Its interesting. I do suck at this job mostly. I think I mentioned above that the one guy had plenty to critique me on. He basically said, put your foot down, they expect that. Don't be wishy washy and do try to be very precise about your instructions. Wow...
He also said a couple more things I wanted to put down in writing. When I am supposed to remember a few things I associate them with part of my routine for that day. He said if there are 10 things I need to tell someone or remember (5 or 3) that the top three most important things should be the first thing in the list, the middle thing in the list and the last thing in the list. I'll have to email him and get that straight before I try to pull that off. Either way he was a big help.