#field log

📍Grand Canyon National Park North Rim

🗓️ July 7-8, 2025

🌡️ about 70° F

We started our drive from Zion which was about two hours from the Grand Canyon thinking that we could easily snag a room and some food on our way in. Jokes on us… we ran out of civilization and cell service pretty quick. We managed to get to the park but the road we were on literally ended. Like if you kept going you were going to drive into the canyon. I took the opportunity to walk around a bit and got a cool moonlit picture of the canyon and also saw for the first time in my life a glow worm! Not a firefly but a small orange segmented worm (inch worm type worm) with a glow on his butt! I found him on the ground which… might not be where he was supposed to be but that’s where I found him so that’s where I left him. I tried to get a photo but it is unfortunately trash.

There was a lodge and a deli there so we ate and then started asking about a room. Turns out at 9 pm the Grand Canyon Lodge isn’t really playing their starters so after having a woman explain to us that “officially” there were four in our party so she couldn’t give us a room for three (the fourth is an infant who has slept with this mother his whole life) we decided to go look for gas and a better rate.

The gas was a bit of a nail biter but we found a country store that sold us some and kept on looking for a room at about 11:45 Arizona time. We stumbled across a place called Jacob Lake Inn with a number to call on the door. After doing so and getting a place to stay we drove around back to a quaint little two room (bathroom and everything else) cabin that was ours for the night.

The next morning, time zones threw us a little bit but we managed to get lunch at the Jacob Lake Inn. They have everything there. Delicious food, home made cookies with unheard of flavors, ice cream, milkshakes (I got a cherry malt and 😵‍💫 so good), a cozy store where I got a book on medicinal plants, and frankly they probably have more that I just didn’t get the chance to see. The Jacob Lake Inn has been family owned and operated for the last 100 years and it really shows. That place is wonderful and I can’t recommend it enough.

Anyway! On to the part y’all are really here for: the park! For what I gathered, North Rim is typically less crowded than South Rim (which means I’ll have to go to south rim as if it’s a different park) but the views are just as breathtaking. It really does look like the world just ends there. You’re up high enough that you can see clean to the other side but somehow not the bottom and the canyon just keeps going and going. Every step I took I felt like there was something new to see. No wonder this was the first national park. This is a global treasure. One day, when I can hike and stuff again, I’d love to go rafting through it or maybe hike from rim to rim.

Of course I got my usual stamp, pin, and a few post cards. This visitor center had a post office so I wrote and sent them off right there.

9/10 since I can’t hike. I will be back!!!

📍Zion National Park

🗓️July 7, 2025

🌡️high of 77° but it felt hotter

Woke up about an hour outside of the park and the drive up was just as spectacular as I remember Utah being. This place truly looks like the surface of mars.

Upon arriving, we learned that most of the park is only accessible by shuttle bus... and all the hikes were at least an hour long... Not great for someone with a leg injury or a family traveling with a 7mo.

We drove all that we could then packed up a few bags and caught that bus. We couldn't see too much of the park since we couldn't hike this time around but what we did see was wonderful. We also found a creek where nephew and I got to splash!

Field Log: Connecting to Social Media

Continued working on Website for LHNI project all day, created social media accounts and connected them to the blog so posts will automatically be shared. With luck this could help this project become a more collaborative effort than just me and Jason.

I have also created a YouTube account to post videos submitted to this project on as my server is moody about hosting large files and embedding…

Field Log: Blog Started

Started the creation of blog for LHNI project. Getting caught up to current may take some time, but, hopefully getting it up and running will be sufficient for Final Project Submission for my Nordic Identity class… it’s only the beginning steps for my capstone project really.