The Grand Canyon

I know I said this was a two-in-one vacation, but actually it was a three-in-one vacation. We've been wanting to go to the Grand Canyon for a long time now. Even though Brian grew up in Arizona, he'd never been there before. (Until I met him, I didn't even know it was possible to grow up here and not go to the Canyon - my Dad took us so much when I was a kid that I was starting to get a little sick of it.)

Anyway, it's been hard for me to get Brian to commit to doing this. The drive just seemed too far for him. He was thinking that he's seen pictures of it all his life and, after all, it's just a big hole in the ground.

Uh huh.

Well, when we realized our campsite was less than two hours away from the South Rim, I was happily surprised that Brian agreed to make a day trip out of it.

Despite knowing photos don't do it justice, I couldn't resist anyway:

I would love to see what's inside this cave, but I would not love the climb to get there.

We decided to walk a short section of trail along the rim, and kept stopping to take pictures. I had forgotten that there are plenty of areas with no guard rail. Oh, and in case you're wondering, Brian loved it here. He kept saying what every adult can't help but say, over and over, "This is just incredible!"

It's neat to see so many visitors from all over the world here. More often than not, English is not the language you hear. And I'm not talking about Spanish either. ;) You hear German, French, Asian languages, Middle Eastern languages. People come from all over the world to see something that's basically in our own backyard:

That's a long way down!

Of course, there's pleasure in stopping and noticing the small things too. Here are the boys quietly watching a squirrel just on the other side of the fence:



On our way back up the trail:

Ben and Chris were a little ways ahead of me, so I didn't see this happen, but I heard it happen. Ben leaned against a fence post and the whole thing came down.

Fortunately, I had noticed this bit of fence the first time we passed it. It was missing a couple of the horizontal pieces of wood, so it was ready to come down anyway. If I didn't already know that, I'm afraid I would have been grilling poor Ben about what he did.

Once we were back in the van, we had some other places along the rim we wanted to go to, along the road that would eventually lead us back home. Every time we saw a lookout, Brian had to pull over. After the third time or so, we stopped getting out of the car and just waited the few minutes for him to get out, say "It's just so incredible!" and then get back in the car. LOL. He said if it weren't for the kids, he could sit there and look at it all day.

Me too, honey.

At the far eastern edge of the rim is what's called the Watchtower. We kept seeing it in the distance every time we'd pull over at a lookout. This is not something I'd seen during my childhood visits to the Canyon, and I really wanted to see it up close. Doesn't it look cool?

The whole time we were working our way toward it, my little story-teller's heart imagined native tribes engaged in ancient warfare, battling around this rocky fortress. I wondered what the inside was like. I wondered if there'd be ancient weapons on display! I was totally disappointed to learn this was just a visitor's center that had been built in the 1930's, merely made to look ancient. Ah well. It was cool anyway. Here's the inside:

There are three levels. I took a picture from the top level, Brian and Chris were on the second level, and John and Ben were on the ground level:

This was a plaque on one of the walls of the outdoor balcony. Nice.

Amen.

This is the observation area on ground level, before you go up the tower:

By the time we got there, the sun setting in the west made the Canyon look all misty. This isn't my camera. This is how it really looked.

And looking east:

Of course, visiting a destination of this kind of grandeur and beauty justifies another foot shot:

You may be questioning whether or not that's really my foot. Afterall, where are the red toenails for proof? But trust me, they're in there. I wore those blasted things the entire week - the only thing I don't like about camping. Once we were done camping, I couldn't get my sandals on fast enough!!!