Day 4 - Grand Canyon

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We did our day trip to the Grand Canyon today. We left around 7:45AM and returned around 4:45PM. We watched the weather before we left and saw that the temperature was predicted to be 20-30 degrees colder than Sedona. We also saw that they were calling for rain in northern Arizona but I guess we thought (hoped!) that wouldn't pertain to us or the Grand Canyon.....we were wrong.

We drove out of Sedona up through Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff and entered the Grand Canyon through the South Entrance. We saw no wildlife on our trip to the Grand Canyon but as soon as we entered the park there were a few moose or elk (not sure which) right off the road. I have no idea why but Adam would not stop in the middle of the road to take pictures!!!! That was our only true wildlife moment for today's trip.

Our first stop was Mather Point. After 2 loops around the parking lot we finally found a space - much more crowded than I thought it would be on a Tuesday in the middle of October. The weather was great the entire drive up and was still OK at this point (very cold (low 50s) and breezy but dry). We, of course, were totally in awe at our first view of the Grand Canyon. Beautiful, amazing, spectacular....etc, etc, etc.

From Mather Point we walked to Yavapai Point. At this point the wind picked up and it started to lightly rain. We walked back to the car and found a parking spot near the Bright Angel Lodge so that we could walk a bit of the Bright Angel trail. We were only on the trail for a few minutes when the rain started to get heavier and even turned into hail. We turned around and went back to the car. We decided to try to get ahead of the rain by heading towards the East Entrance/Exit. We followed Desert View Drive and did actually get ahead of the rain enough to make a few more stops on the way out of the park. We stopped at Moran Point and the Desert View including climbing the Watch Tower and then left the park. We drove back via Cameron to Flagstaff then on to Cornville.

A long day of driving but definitely worth it. We are glad we decided to make this day trip, we may never have a chance to see the Grand Canyon again.

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