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Published: July 10th 2007
Hi Folks,
As I’m composing this, we are on our way away from the Grand Canyon, heading toward Las Vegas. Thanks to us needing gas, we had a nice little surprise this morning when we stopped in Williams to gas up and have breakfast. Williams is about 1 hour south of the Grand Canyon south exit, and it is home to the Grand Canyon Railroad. Williams sits on Route 66 and has lots of old-timey western charm. We had a wonderful breakfast at a cute restaurant filled with local artists' paintings of cowboys on the range, the Grand Canyon, and Native Americans. So now we can add historic Route 66 to our list of places visited.
What can I say about the Grand Canyon! Those of you who’ve been there know--there is no way to capture its majesty with our cameras. We kept alternating between grabbing our cameras in our desire to record everything, and then thinking our cameras will never give this justice, so let’s just soak it in. We must have done some of both, because we sure ended up with a bunch of pictures!
Yesterday started with the drive from Phoenix to the Grand
Canyon. Based on our Payson tour guide’s recommendation, we chose to enter the park from the east entrance, rather than use the much busier and less scenic south entrance. What a treat it was as we saw “previews” of the canyon as we drove through the Navajo lands, and took our first glimpse of the canyon from the Painted Desert View lookout and Indian tower. The tower is a re-creation of Native American prehistoric towers found in the southwest and was designed to blend in with the landscape. Then we drove on to the east entrance, stopping for more spectacular views at a few of the lookout points between the two entrances.
As we came into the south entrance, we could not believe the crowds at Mather Point, the first lookout for visitors to the south entrance. Finding a parking space was nearly impossible, so we decided to save that view for the next morning on our way out of the park. After getting checked into our Yavapai Lodge room, we headed off to the Grand Canyon airport for our airplane tour of all four rims. Despite the flight narration’s claim of how smooth the airplane was, Nick nearly
had to use the barf bag! Seriously, it was a great experience with incredible aerial views and perspectives you cannot get from the rim. For example, from the air you can how the river changes from smooth waters to rapids at various places, and how the water can be brilliant blue, deep green, or brown, depending on the location. So, we not only did we survive the bumps and bobbles in the air, we enjoyed some fantastic views.
Because our flight was right in the middle of the day, we didn’t have time for a hike into the canyon. We’ll save that for the north rim later in our trip. Instead, we spent the rest of the afternoon visiting various lookout views along the rim trail, alternating between walking the trail and shuttle hopping. Our favorite viewpoint as Maricopa Point where you can pan for well over 180 degrees and see the canyon’s rock colors and formations change in so many ways. Another highlight was Hopi Point where we watched the sun set and the sky gradually turn to beautiful hues of purple and pink.
While waiting for one of the last shuttles to Grand Canyon Village,
we met a family from North Carolina. Noticing the son’s UNC ball cap, we were encouraged that maybe these folks speak English. Up to now we were beginning to wonder if were in some strange new land called Germasia. As it turned out the family was from Raleigh and both parents were ECU grads, who had met while in school in Greenville. So we had a nice chat with them while waiting for our shuttle. Then it was on to supper in the Arizona Room of the Bright Angel Lodge. When we left the restaurant, we were pleasantly surprised to see two Elk grazing right there on the lodge lawn. It was quite a sight! They were unmoved by our camera flashes, but I guess we were not quite close enough, because our pictures did not turn out so great. All the same, it was really cool to see such large creatures up close and personal. I guess they are willing to tolerate us humans for the opportunity to munch on that nice lush green grass. We concluded our evening with a little star-gazing and a moonlight walk before catching the bus back to our lodge room, where we were
ready to crash for the night!
The next morning (the day I am writing this), we were checked out of our room by 6 a.m., had taken in Mather Point, and were on our way to Williams, where this entry begins, by 6:30 a.m. So that’s our Grand Canyon story. From the peacefulness and grace of the canyon, we’re now almost to the glitz and gaming of Las Vegas. This is definitely turning out to be a vacation of extremes. We’ll be back at you later with our next recap.
Until then,
Joanna and Nick , Southwest Wanderers
P.S. Another surprise—Because I just Googled our route from South Rim to Las Vegas, I didn’t even realize we would drive right by Hoover Dam. So, that was another cool surprise today. More about Vegas in our next post….
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Lora Pancoast
non-member comment
Hi there!
Great to hear from you! Oh yes that Grand Canyon is tops! No one can ever capture it's awesomeness without going there themselves. So glad you have been able to enjoy it like that. Sounds like you have had some very great experiences. I can't wait for you to see the rest it is something you can never imagine. Great pics! It's nice being able to enjoy it all with you. Love it! Lora and family