Day 10: Our Wedding Day

Miles travelled: 5353 to 5458 (total of 5 miles)

Weather: slightly overcast in the morning, then clear, sunny, with dark rain clouds in the afternoon to keep Disa stressed

Highlight of the day: Hmmmmm. . .

We both slept fitfully – combination of an overly hot room and excitment.

At 4:46 am Scott woke Disa (who had finally gotten to sleep) so we could see the sun rising over Grandeur Point from the rim right in front of our cabin. Lovely sunrise! The restaurant wasn’t open yet, so we grabbed some lattes from the coffee place and walked around until we could get a big breakfast at the Bright Angel Restaurant.

7.50 am we started off down the Bright Angel trail. Disa was highly stressed about going too far down into the canyon, then having to rush on our way up (we did have somewhere to be later that day after all!) so we only went down as far as 3 Mile House. It was a truly stunning walk; the canyon is completely different once you get down into it. You get up close to the colours, the wildlife (squirrels, chipmonks, big horned sheep, through walkers. . .), you begin to have a better understanding of the scale of the place, etc. And Disa need not have worried about it being a long hard slog uphill; although of course it was all uphill on the return journey, the track really isn’t too steep and we made the whole trip in 4 hours, including millions of photo stops, and 1.5 litres of water each.

When we got back to the rim, we wandered through shops, purchased a native American wedding vase at Hopi House. Then Scott went and did the laundry, and Disa phoned Maria about our wedding (as she will be in class when it takes place) then had a shower and started fussing around. Scott returned from doing the laundry, had a shower, and we both got a bit dressed up.

We met the photographer, Scott Woods, and his assistant Terri at Yavapai Point at 6 pm. Funny – we were looking around at anyone with a camera wondering if that was him, but he had no trouble figuring out who we were! There was no direct sunlight in the canyon for the photos taken before the wedding, however when Judge Bill Sutton arrived the sun came for our ceremony. It was a lovely ceremony – we are now married. We watched the sun set at Yavapai, then on the way ‘home’ Disa saw an elk. We phoned Disa’s parents to tell them about the ceremony, and then headed to the El Tovar Hotel where we had a most excellent dinner and were generally treated like royalty – and had the most enormous wedding cake ‘for two’ you can imagine!

Scott’s Checklist for 16 May 2006

1. Watch sunrise
2. Hearty breakfast
3. Hike down Bright Angel trail to 3 mile house
4. Hike up Bright Angel trail to rim
5. Buy wedding vase previously scoped out
6. Laundry
7. Shower, hair, makeup, nails etc
8. Dress in best clobber
9. Marry sensational, beautiful, smart, funny, sexy woman with whom I’m head over heels in love
10. Watch sunset
11. Dinner at El Tovar including failed attempt to eat cake bigger than my head
12. Bed