The Grand Canyon

We drove from Kayenta to the East Gate of the Grand Canyon National Park today, then on to Tusayan where we are staying.

Wow. The Grand Canyon is… pretty big. We stopped at the East Entrance sign for a bit to eat then stopped at the first viewpoint at the Watchtower. Our first view of the Grand Canyon took our breath away. The views were amazing. It was much more immense and stretched way off into the distance. The sheer size of this canyond dwarfed all of the other canyons we’d been to so far. Maybe that’s why they call it the “Grand Canyon” and not just the “Pretty Big Canyon.”

We stopped at each of the viewpoints along the road as we made our way to Tusayan, amazed again and again at the different views each one afforded. The multicoloured red and brown layers of rock and rugged canyon walls contrasted beautifully against the dull jade of the Colorado River. We spent several hours taking in the views and clicking away hundreds of photos.

Somewhere along the way we’ve missed a time change. We checked into the hotel and decided to have an early dinner so we could catch sunset in the canyon… and only when we were seated in a deserted restaurant did we discover that it was only 4 pm, not 5 pm as we had thought. We had another huge meal and then went back into the park to see the sunset.

The sunset was a bit of madness. Cars were parked hap-hazardly everywhere along the roads. Everyone and their dog was out jockeying for the best photo position along the rim of the canyon. It was really busy and everyone was trying to find a place to take photos. The way people were acting you’d think they would win a prize if they managed to get a spot better than the people next to them. In the end the effort was worth it as we enjoyed the sights as the sun slowly lit up the canyon and enhanced the contrast and colours of the stone.