Grand Canyon Day 4: Service Project Day 2

Today we awoke at 6:50am after a windy, cool night.  I awoke many times coughing or extremely congested. Poor Emily (my tent mate).

For breakfast we had toasted bagels with butter, peanut butter, and cream cheese.  Then we drove down to Lee's Ferry and searched for Sahara mustard for about 3 hours. We found a good bit of trash, and saw a decent bit of native mustard, but found no Sahara mustard. We also saw multiple groups setting up rafts for 2-4 week Grand Canyon trips.

We headed back to camp for lunch at 11am, as we were supposed to have an interpretive talk at noon. We ate tortillas with hummus, tuna, pepper jack cheese, and leftover ham and roast beef.  I could only stomach one roll-up with ham and cheese.  After lunch a bunch of us laid down and napped. I'm feeling pretty sickly and drained today (worse than the previous days).

Apparently the person who was supposed to give our noon talk was delayed when her plane couldn't take off due to wind, so we just went down to the Lonely Dell Ranch to explore.  I was really dragging during the 1 mile self-guided tour.

Orchard at Lonely Dell Ranch

 The Paria River, by Lonely Dell Ranch

We got back in the cars and went to remove more Sahara mustard. We walked by the river for a bit, where we were thrilled to find 2 Sahara mustard plants.  Then we got to a beach, where we napped, got in the cold Colorado River, and played Ultimate Frisbee.  I stayed in the water the longest - it felt good and I'm glad I got in, but now everything is so sandy. It was relaxing to sit on the beach for a while and just chill.

Hunting for Sahara Mustard in a small wash

 Beach at Lee's Ferry

Once we returned to camp, Josh noted how helpful having 17 other people out here helping him grid and remove really is.  Apparently he is the only Grand Canyon front-country invasive species person.  He also noted that it really is a victory when we grid an area and find no Sahara mustard.

We made a quick trip to the gas station convenience store tonight. Most people got lots of snacks and ice cream.  Everything was pretty overpriced.  I got a little bag of Cheese-its and a Marble Canyon hiking tee-shirt.

We made potato and garbanzo bean soup for dinner.  The soup seemed like it would not be tasty for a while, but eventually we added enough spices for it to actually be pretty good.

It seems like it will be another cold, windy night - probably worse than the previous night.  We'll see how it goes.

In general, everyone seems tired but happy and relaxed tonight.  Today was a pretty cool day.