Monday The night was long because I couldn't sleep. My ears were ringing loudly, even though the place was quiet. I ran the headphone tracks three times. I watched the clock turn to 3 am. I got up and covered digital displays in the room, but then the light around the window seemed brighter. I stacked up all the pillows so that I was sitting up in bed. It was fine for awhile, but eventually I pushed them away and laid prone.

I was sleeping when my alarm went off at 7:30. I tried to go back to sleep. Chris suggested we could check out and find another hotel. We washed up and got dressed. I took some creatine monohydrate which is supposed to mitigate the effects of not enough sleep.

We walked across the street (longer than it sounds) to the main lodge and got in line for breakfast. There was an Indian lady behind us who was there by herself so we invited her to eat with us. We ate from the buffet and had a nice conversation with her. She was about Michele's age. If she were in India, her mother would be nagging her about getting married. Afterward, Chris went to the bathroom and I looked around the lobby. I got a key card to the pool and went to check it out. Chris found me there. We checked out the virtual canyon tour, but they were too short-staffed to run it at the moment. We walked back, pausing at the rock shop to talk to a couple there. We took pics of them and they took pics of us. Finally we completed our walk to the room at the motel.

After some downtime, we went to the lodge to buy tickets to ride the shuttle bus. But they told Chris he could just use his army ID and we could get on for free. We waited for the shuttle and talked to ladies at the bus stop. We rode the bus into the park, got off at the second stop and walked around the rim. We stopped to take pics and to talk to people. We met people from all over the US and the world. He practiced his French and Korean. I asked them what lockdowns were like in their country.

We rode the bus back from the next stop, but when we got to the park entrance, the driver talked about sanitizing the bus and said we could cross the street and get on that bus. But that entailed another ride through all the stops of the park. Finally we came out to Ruby Inn. We got off so that bus could be sanitized, and we walked back to our room which wasn't all that far away.

I tried to take a nap, but each time I was about to nod off, Chris' phone would beep or tweet or ding. Finally I got up, put my shoes on, and ate the last bite of pork left from yesterday. I jotted notes for my blog and then we walked over to the lodge for supper. Chris got the ribs and I got the soup and salad bar. The salmon soup was salty and the tomato basil was fine, but thin. We skipped dessert. The bill was almost $50. Then we checked out the pictures in the hallway of the canyon. They were just gorgeous. So were the pieces of polished petrified wood. But you could buy a car for what they charged. I went into the native Indian store. I looked all around and bought a dream catcher with feathers. Then we walked back to the motel.

We got dressed for bed even though it was too early. We watched three episodes of Lucifer and I nodded off. So Chris turned off his computer and shut off the lights and we went to bed (before nine).