May 2: My dad and I left and took a long drive back to Tucson, I had to come home one day (28 miles) before the end of my trip because I needed time to make and practice my presentation that I was required to give for my senior project. I would have to come up right after and finish up my last day
May 3rd-5th: preparing for my formal presentation
May 6th: I have my presentation that day, it went exceptionally well. I was incredibly nervous while practicing but not at all when I went up. I had the latest Audience of any of the other seniors and filled up the whole cafeteria, a lot of friends and family showed up and that was great. I thought I did really well and showed off both the CFF and the ATA pretty well. Directly after that my mom, my dad and my brother all went back up to the trail. We got there late and set up a little Tent to spend the night in.
May 7th: last day, and a long one. My dad, Keegan and I all set out early that morning. Our mom was going to drive to the state line campground and meet us that night for pick up the next morning. It was a long day and not incredibly eventful, came down off the Kaibab plateau and saw the first turn to shrub turn to dessert. It was a 27-mile long day and first the first half of the day my dad was doing great but at around mile 12 he hit a wall and slowed way down. At one point we were traveling half a mile an hour. Put that on top Of Keegan trying to race ahead all the time and it was a little frustrating. It started raining in the late afternoon and lucky me and my dad had jackets and Keegan was practically running ahead the whole day so he was fine. At one point Keegan stopped waiting around for me and my dad, I could have kept up with Keegan but I didn't want my dad to hike Alone. We tried yelling for Keegan but no answer, we tried to call but we had no service. We thought he could be lost because he didn't have any GPS and the trail for pretty gnarly at parts. We set off that day with a 5 pm ETA for that night, we didn't get in until around 11 pm. We slowly hobbled down the mountain. I had some nasty shin splints from hiking at my dad's pace and not my own. It was cold, dark and raining pretty hard by the time we got in. Keegan was there so that was nice and our mom greeted us with hobo dinners, a meal we have every time we go camping. We tore through them and went to bed. I had done it, all 800 miles. My sense of accomplishment was tarnished by how exhausted I was, so it pretty much summed up my whole trip. I didn't feel as prideful as I expected to, though I did feel pretty good. We went to bed and slept for what felt like days.
May 8th: We got up and took some pictures of me on the state line. Turns out my mom locked her keys inside her car, hours from anywhere. We were able to call an AAA from Page but they took a really long time to get there. They had to drive pretty far into Utah and back down to get to the point we were at. They got it open as I took a second a looked over the valley and thought about how much I had just done. I was ready to go home, I missed my girlfriend, my friends, and my bed. They got the car open and we all hopped in, ready to head home. I drove back to Tucson that night, 15 pounds lighter and 800 miles rougher.
