Day 8: Grand Canyon (first day)

Miles driven to-date: 2,965
States visited to-date: 13

This morning we awoke at the Days Inn in Flagstaff, AZ on Route 66 and drove about 90 miles to the Grand Canyon. While we had heard great things about the “big hole in the ground,” we were preparing ourselves for disappointment – we figured it couldn’t be all that great, and braced ourselves for large crowds of fellow tourists. Upon arriving, we flashed our fancy National Parks Pass and entered the maze of roads leading to the campground where we were due to check in. The plan was to pitch our tent and get our campsite set up before seeing what all of the fuss was about. Well, we didn’t make it that far; as we drove into the park, we caught a glimpse of the Canyon and just had to pull over to take a look. We were amazed! It was unbelievable and quite literally jaw-dropping.

The photos all of you have seen really don’t do it justice. That didn’t stop us, of course, from taking 140 of our own pictures with which we plan to bore you when we return, but it’s nothing like actually being there. Steve thought it looked almost fake, like the backdrop of a movie set. I was also somewhat surprised by how close you can actually get to the huge drop-offs. They say that hundreds of people die each year from falling over the edge, and I certainly believe it now.

We did eventually tear ourselves away from the view to set up our campsite which was a fun process in its own right. We had picked up sandwich fixings and Steve got some Fat Tire, one of his favorite beers (featured below in a quintessential lunch-while-camping shot).

After lunch we headed back to the Canyon to do a five-mile walk / hike along the South Rim which was a great way to see many of the beautiful views. You can see in the below photo that in some places I was a little too scared to actually walk to the edge to look down, so I crawled!

It was a gorgeous day ~ warm but not too hot, and it was a nice cool evening for sleeping in our tent (plus there were no bugs at all). We kept thinking of you, Rusty, as we “roughed it” and we knew you and many others checking in at home would have loved it here too.

We decided to enjoy the sunset from Hopi Point on the western side of the South Rim. That is supposed to be one of the best places to watch the sun go down and it was certainly beautiful, though the other thousand tourists also watching and taking photos made it a slightly less than intimate setting. Still, it was gorgeous and we got some great photos. I thought of you several times during the beautiful evening hours, Bill, because it seemed like there could be nothing better in life than to enjoy one’s book while soaking in the great sunset!