Caterpillar Poop Camp

"Lukas come to bed," She said.

"We're not drinking Kb... Just looking at the stars."

  I was laying on top of a picnic table down in Phantom Ranch. Worrying about if all that caterpillar poop that was falling into my eye was going to give me pink eye or something terrible in the morning. We had discovered that we were under fire after our hobo cups kept getting little dark specs every time we set them down on the table. After this realization we noticed it was everywhere. All over the table, on the maps, in our food and on our head. If you were quiet enough you could hear these tiny little grains of sand like specs falling from the sky and hitting the table. The wind would blow through the trees and you could hear a few caterpillars hit the ground. The pink eye would be worth it though. Seeing the stars during a new moon, miles from city lights is something I'll never take for granted.

  You don't get to see much of the sky while down in the Grand Canyon. The stars at night up on Canon still tops the best view I've ever experienced and gives you the feeling that The Dictionary of obscure words calls..

onism - n. the awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience

Imagine standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.

  That's the greatest part of visiting places like The Grand Canyon. It makes you feel small. Laying on a picnic table staring at the cosmos while getting poop'd on puts you in your place.

  This was my first trip down to Phantom Ranch. It's a small campground down in the bottom of the Grand Canyon that has a little of everything. You can ride a donkey down, have a steak dinner and spend the night in a small cabin. For a hefty price tag and I imagine a long wait list.  It's still pretty remote down there though. You're in the bottom of a giant hole and the only way is up. Back up the switch backs, water bars and never ending steps.

 While sleeping in my tent that night thinking about the hike out the next day and if I will ever come back down here again, I come to the realization that there isn't any other place I would rather be at in that moment.