Day 5 - The Grand Canyon

What is there to say about the Grand Canyon?! Not much, really, so this post will mostly be pictures - it is truly an amazing, awesome and unbelievable sight! I am still thinking about it almost one week later.

The drive from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon is a little more than 1 1/2 hours, so I was hoping that we would get off by about 8am. That turned out to be a bit optimistic. We actually left the condo at about 10:00. Rather than take the usual route from Flagstaff to Grand Canyon Village, we drove up the 84 so our first view of the Canyon was from Desert View, which is about 20 miles East. The route takes you through the Navajo Nation and the Little Colorado gorge - another amazing landscape in Northern Arizona. I highly recommend this. The views were amazing, and it was much less crowded there than it was when we got to the village. There is a beautiful watchtower there designed by Mary Colter, who designed much of the beautiful architecture on the South Rim.

Some pictures from Desert View:



The Watchtower:



The inside of it is beautiful as well. There are murals illustrating Hopi rituals and life, and many windows to look through (as well as the inevitable gift shop).

The kids were complaining about being hungry so we grabbed a little food at the snack bar, and then went on to two other viewpoints, Lipan Point and Grandview:





See - Tom & I really were there!

The hunger issue (and the whining) was becoming a real problem, so we headed over to the Grand Canyon Village for lunch. When we drove by Mather Point, where most people go first, I was really glad we had not had our first view of the Canyon there. It was mobbed! We kept going to the Bright Angel Lodge, and went to the Arizona Room for lunch. The food was only OK, but where else can you eat while looking out over the Grand Canyon!

This area was also absolutely full of people, mostly from tour buses it seems. Anyway, we knew that we wanted to hike down into the canyon a little bit, so we decided to go down the Bright Angel trail which has its trailhead near the lodge. For me, this was the highlight of the trip! Not only do the crowds disappear almost immediately, but the Canyon is even more amazing from inside of it. We only hiked down about .75 miles before turning around (it was late, hot, and Ally is only 7!), but it was so worth it.

Some photos from the hike:





We actually saw a mountain goat! Hannah spotted it, and Will took this awesome photo:


This is a cool spot near the head of the trail:

After our hike, which took about an hour, we cooled off in the bookstore at the trailhead. We bought some posters and some books (including one book called Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon, which lists all the known fatalities in the Canyon and tells many of the stories in full - I'm almost done reading it which I'm sure says something interesting about me! I find it fascinating!). While looking out the window there I spotted a bird which I was almost sure was a California Condor.

Well, sure enough I was right! We wandered over to the lookout point, and there was a naturalist there who was studying the Condor population in the Grand Canyon. There were 7 of them she was able to spot. Here is an attempt to take a picture of one (this is Will's shot also - I'm sure he did better than I would have!):

You'll have to take my word for it, but seeing those birds was amazing! They have 9 foot wingspans, and don't look the same as eagles or hawks at all.

Some final views before we leave the Canyon:



Isn't it incredible!

After hanging out in the El Tovar Hotel for a few minutes (and deciding that we would like to come back and stay there someday), we drove down to the town of Williams, about one hour south, for dinner. Williams was cute. It is on Route 66, and tourism in the town has been saved by really playing that up. I resisted the urge to buy some Route 66 shot glasses!

We had a wonderful meal at the Cruisers Cafe 66. It was good diner food, with some great beer and a bearded man singing 60's & 70's songs while we ate. I loved it!



Completely exhausted, we headed home for bed.