The Grand Canyon

The drive to the Grand Canyon was very nice. It wasn’t long which was already a big plus. We stopped in Flagstaff to get gas and some lunch food and ended up at a Safeway where they were matching any $$ people donated to a disability charity. Every time someone donated at a register they’d go on the loudspeaker and say “$___ donated on register ____, woo hoo!!” At first we had no idea what was going on but figured it out when we got to the checkout. We got bread, meat, cheese and a 6 pack of some interesting beer from Sedona. This became our dinner later at the campsite which was great.

Along the drive to Grand Canyon National park we saw stall after stall of Indian jewelry and trinkets. Most of them didn’t have any people or things for sale in them, I assume they are full during the summer but it’s probably too early in the sesason to be worth their while.

This week turned out to be free entry to the Grand Canyon week so even though we had the pass we wouldn’t have had to pay anyway. We started at the east entrance and made our way back to the visitor center side which turned out to be the best way we could have done it. The canyon was stunning. It really doesn’t look real at first. There is no way that the photos we took can capture the enormity and beauty of the place. We stopped at all the points along the way to get photos of different parts from different angles. I’m sure there will be some good ones in there.

At the end of it we went to our campsite and set up camp before heading off to do the rest of the things we had planned. We set up our tent and sleeping stuff in a great little site. The campground was pretty nice. Then we headed over to do a little bit of the bright angel trail. We were both surprised by how many buildings and amenities there were over by the trailhead. Lots of lodging and a train (not sure what the deal with the train was or where it went from/to) and a gift shop.

Going down the trail was amazing. We came across people who had gone down to the bottom that morning and then had come back up. We also saw people that had camped down there. There were signs warning you against doing the whole hike in the same day. We only did about half an hour down and then came back up but I was really glad that we had. Going down into the canyon, even that little bit was really cool. It gave you much more of a perspective on the hugeness of the place. The trail was very well maintained though it was a bit muddy with the melting snow. That’s something I haven’t mentioned yet. There was snow in a lot of places at the canyon, including a chunk at the beginning of our campsite. We were surprised to see it there at all, let alone in a lot of different places.

The evening we had our dinner, listening to music, made a fire with a small bundle of expensive wood and hung out with a couple beers around the fire. It was a nice relaxing day of seeing some pretty cool things.