Terrifyingly beautiful - the Grand Canyon

After a great nights sleep, we had a delicious breakfast at our favourite place, Macy’s, and then jump in the car. Today we see the Grand Canyon.

An hour and a half along the highway and we have reached a small town just outside of the Grand Canyon. We buy our park pass here and have a look at the National Geographic store ... or Grand Canyon souvenir shop.

We jump back in the car and drive through the entry gates to the national park. The road is like a maze. We try to follow the map but end up getting lost in the “village”, a massive collection of shops, transportation centres and accommodation. We finally work out where we are, stop for lunch supplies at the onsite supermarket and then drive back to the visitor information centre.

We park the car, get out the back pack and camera and head out to the rim. We walk through information stands, signs, shops and vending machines. We finally hit a walking path that leads us through thick scrub. After a minute or two, we emerge at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Wholly crap! It is grand.

We have been practicing our reaction poses for the camera.

We met an old couple in Vegas when waiting in line to pick up our tickets for LOVE and started talking to them about our trip. We told them we were heading to the Grand Canyon and the husband started quoting at least five different writers, explorers, political figures, who had seen the Grand Canyon and recorded their impressions. He also told us about one man that saw the canyon and could barely describe it, he was so overwhelmed with the ‘disgusting beauty’ of it. With this in mind, our expectations were pretty high - that is why we were practicing our reaction shots before we got there.

The Grand Canyon was awe inspiring, it was amazing, it was beautiful. It was also very high, very dangerous and very poorly fenced.

My fear of heights took the shine off the experience. I spent the whole time worrying that someone was going to fall off the edge and plummet, for hours, until they reached their death at the very bottom of the canyon.

We saw squirrels along the way, dancing for food. Very cute.

We stopped at a bench in the shade for lunch. It was a nice way to experience the canyon. A little further back, sitting safely on a bolted down chair.

After walking along the rim for several hours we decided that we were ‘granded out’.

A quick stop to the souvenir store - Yes, I have bought my parents another snow globe :) - we jumped in the car and headed back to lovely, flat on the ground, Flagstaff.