Grand Canyon

Can you believe I lived in Arizona for 6 years and never saw the Grand Canyon? What a loser.

We had bigger hopes for the Canyon than we executed. The 16 mile hike down into the canyon was on our list of to dos, but with the millions of knee and butt falls at Arizona Snowbowl and having to buy crampons to traverse the ice on the way down, we opted out. Instead we chose to walk along the Southern Rim for the day. Several miles of path walking, viewpoints and information centers filled the entire day. The view never got any less awesome.

What did get a little hairy were the sheer drop offs that we encountered far too often. And don’t get me started on those nutballs that insisted on saddling up as close to the edge as possible. There were a few other nutballs out there as well.

I’m quite impressed with the amount of time you could spend at the Grand Canyon. I think with the camping and lodging, the restaurants, the views and the different trails, you could easily visit for an entire week. It’s quite impressive. We’ll have to plan better next time.

Eventually it was sunset time. Better known as Dusty finding the perfect spot while Wendy sits restless and freezing her butt off behind him.

Actually, I did entertain myself for a little while. With just my phone and a mini tripod, I was able to capture these sunset photos and put them together as a time lapse video. It’s a whopping 5 seconds long, but it’s all I could muster out of my phone’s battery after a day of sight-seeing.

Once the sunset was over, we caught the shuttle back to our car. While we waited, we met some Korean kids who were backpacking across the States. The most curious of them is pictured with me below. In his best English he requested that Dusty email him a copy of that photo.

On the shuttle we met some Tasmanian retirees who were also traveling through the U.S., but in an RV. Hold up. People from other countries backpack the U.S.?!? Both of these groups had started in L.A. and were making their way over to New York. I wondered if they would enjoy their tour as much as we had.

Then it occurred to me that we were the hosts for a change! Even though it too was our first time to the Grand Canyon, we were able to chat with the Tasmanians about where they were going next and what we recommended they not miss. It was nice to talk to foreigners who were actually interested in visiting our country.

We don’t come across that too often.