{"id":562,"date":"2010-08-06T01:10:39","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T06:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/?p=562"},"modified":"2010-08-05T05:27:53","modified_gmt":"2010-08-05T10:27:53","slug":"grand-canyon-rafting-29-another-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/2010\/08\/grand-canyon-rafting-29-another-bench\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Canyon Rafting – 29 Another Bench"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n

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 \u201cfor the guys.\u201d 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We exited the Grand Canyon on Saturday morning. Up with the sun at 5 AM, shave, write in my journal, eat breakfast, pickup the camp site. A 15-minute ride on the rafts took us to the take-out place. Our cast<\/a> and those of several other rafting trips were taken away by helicopter while other groups were brought in by helicopter. The other groups were to do a two- or three-day trip from this point to Lake Mead – the end of this section of the Colorado River.<\/p>\n

The helicopter ride was great fun. This was my first helicopter ride, and if you are to ride in a helicopter once in your life, this is the place to do it – rising out of the Grand Canyon. I loved it.<\/p>\n

The helicopter took us to the Bar 10 Ranch<\/a>. This ranch is some sort of motel on the edge of the Grand Canyon. I don’t know much about it. I do know that it had showers and indoor plumbing. Those were nice after a week of dunking in the cold river and porta-pottys.<\/p>\n

I showered, dressed, bought a Coca-Cola in the little store, and sat on a bench on the front porch. It was hot, but there was a little breeze and the front porch provided shade. I sat on the bench with some guy I had never seen before. We talked about nothing and stared into the distance. There is lots of distance here, out west, for the express purpose of staring.<\/p>\n

Sitting on this bench was like sitting on the bench in front of the Marble Canyon Lodge<\/a> some five mornings earlier. I loved it. Just sitting on a bench, sipping a drink, chatting with a stranger, staring into the distance – just relaxing out west.<\/p>\n

Sitting on this bench and on that other bench five days before – those two hours were the most enjoyable part of the week for me. I guess that describes who I am. I like to relax on a front porch in the morning. I like to be out west. I like isolated places. I have loved experiences like this my entire life.<\/p>\n

These front-porch benches provided expectation and reflection. Five days earlier on that first front-porch bench I was expecting the river trip. Here on this front-porch bench I was reflecting on the river trip.<\/p>\n

I loved it – part of the wonder of the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u201cfor the guys.\u201d On a trip put together by my father-in-law Allan, his two sons, me (a son in law), my three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-canyon","tag-grand-canyon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":563,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions\/563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}