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TID-BITS
11/06/2010

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I was feeling a bit depressed and down not seeing any birds the last trip to the canyon so I figured the only cure was to make another trip to the canyon. In the past I have had good birding in November so I loaded up the van and headed back to the canyon.

The weather was so nice I drove all the way with my windows down. The sun was bright and no clouds to be seen. I figured this will surely be a bountiful bird photographing trip.

On my way into the park I met ole SMOKEY BEAR.

Howdy old Earl he said. I believe you really picked a bad time to visit the canyon. Why is that I ask.
There's some dark storm clouds on the horizon, I feel a chill in the air like winter is very close. Well,
I'm here so I will just look around for a while.

I noticed there were very few people at the canyon, you could get a parking place most any where you wanted. The motels were about half their normal room rates. I found a motel, had dinner, and turned in for the night in order to get an early start the next morning.

The next morning I got up but it was raining so hard you could hardly see 100 feet a head of you. I went back to bed and napped for a few hours. It was now about noon. I drove over and parked by the Bright Angel cafe to have breakfast. The wind was blowing 15 to 20 MPH and gusting to 45 MPH. The cafe was on the rim walk way so I ventured out to see how bad the canyon looked.

Not to good for about 10 AM. The white stuff is snow. Back inside I scrambled and had a long breakfast hoping the sun would some how sneak its way out. But it did not. In fact it got much worse. I believe the temp. and the wind was in the 40's and that was not good.

Upon leaving the the Bright Angle restaurant I was about blown away by the high gusty wind plus it was so dark you would have thought it was night. By now it was a little after noon and raining very hard.

Normally there are so many people in this area you cant even get close to the edge wall to view the canyon. I think there is 1 person out there. Don't get to close to the edge I called out the wind might just blow you over the edge.

The next morning I gave it another try. As I was headed for the Bright Angel restaurant a strong gust of wind blew me down, thud, I hit the cement. A construction rush to my rescue, I guess my head took the majority of the fall, luckely I didn't break a bone or two. A crippled old man using a cane to walk shouldn't even be out here. Other than a cut knee and a few gashes on my forehead I guess I was OK. After eating I thought this ain't no place for me to be trying to walk with a cane so I got back to van, went to the motel and the next morning I think it was close to "0" degrees I headed home. The TV said it was going to be this way for the next week or so.

Many thanks to the construction worker who helped me up from my fall and fixed my glasses.


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