Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

From June 28th through July 3rd, I had the privilege of being on a raft on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This was part of a family trip “for the guys.” On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three sons, two other grandsons, one grandson-in-law, and one great grandson spent five days and five nights on the Colorado River. These blog posts are part of the story.

We slept on cots in the open air – “under the stars” as they kept telling us. I was tired, and I didn’t sleep well most of the week. It was just too plain hot to sleep for the first half of the night.

We were camping in a canyon – an obvious statement. This meant that on both sides of us were steep canyon walls. One thing the canyon walls did at night was block the sight of the moon. The moon was only visible about half the night. That was a surprising blessing.

Each night, except the night of rain, the moon would appear about midnight and stay in view for several hours. I knew this because the moon woke me. The moon was as large and bright as a street light. I couldn’t sleep on my back facing up. I had to roll onto my side and turn away from the moon. If I didn’t, the moon light would keep me awake.

I am not sure why the moon appeared so bright in the night sky of the canyon. Maybe my eyes were too tired after a day in the sun. Maybe there is little if any dust in the night air of the canyon. Maybe I was just so tired that anything and everything disturbed my sleep.

Regardless of the cause of its brightness, my first reaction to the moon appearing in the middle of the night was to ask someone to turn off their flashlight.