Here, There, and Just About Anywhere: You Can't Get Here From There - or

What an absolutely incredible day we spent at the Grand Canyon!

But, since we weren't crows, we had to drive around John Robin's barn to get from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon.

If you look at a map, the Grand Canyon is basically due east of the Vegas area. But, there are no roads that get you directly there by going due east. So after we finished the NOMADS project at Camp Potosi Pines (that's located southwest of Vegas), we had to drive back through the city, across the Hoover Dam, south on Hwy 93, east on I-40, then back north on Hwy 64. Altogether, it was 313 miles. Now, if I was a crow, it would have been about 190 miles.

You can see wisps of clouds moving in from the left.

Was it worth it?

Does the snow fall in Montana in the winter? Yes, Yes, Yes! It was definitely worth the time and effort it took to get here.

The Grand Canyon is one of those places you really need to see to appreciate its grandeur. It's not called the "Grand" Canyon on purpose. Bill kept asking me why I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. “See some pictures of it or watch a film about it – it's just about the same” was his usual comment. But I persisted and now I think he's glad we came. But it took some effort . . .

The long drive from Vegas, the crazy drivers on the narrow two lane Hwy 64 (with cars passing us on curves, hills, double yellow lines – I almost had heart failure – but wouldn't you know it, most of those cars were from California!), the snow falling as we set up the RV, and the crowds of people. Only later did we learn there was a half-marathon being run the next day. Ended up having around 1500 people running that race! So much for our quiet day at the Grand Canyon.

Regardless, the next morning we drove from the campground in Tusayan (pronounced “two-sigh-on” with the emphasis on the “two”), a couple miles south of the park, to the entrance. Thank goodness for our senior park pass – saved us $25. entrance fee. Getting expensive, our national parks.

We wandered around the Visitor's Center and got my little Passport book stamped, then finally wandered out to the rim. Even after all the pictures I have seen of the Grand Canyon, I wasn't prepared for the view that appeared in front of me. Blown away doesn't describe it! The vastness was hard to take in! I also felt as if I was looking through a pane of glass at a 3D image. I remember looking at Bill and asking him if it seemed real to him. And even though it was very chilly and the canyon had a very slight fog hanging in it, you could still see these huge stone monuments that looked like a giant child had been playing at the seashore and building sand castles.

The way the light played on the
cliffs was fascinating. Notice
the dark sky in the back.

The park has a really nice pathway called the Rim Trail that is paved for quite a few miles. We started hiking it, all along stopping to marvel at the scenes in front of us. All sorts of people were visiting the park today and we started trying to figure out what languages we heard spoken. Some were very obvious – oriental looking people were speaking, guess what? Oh, mostly, Japanese. But we also heard Spanish (not surprising), Italian, a lot of German, then on one of the bus rides, we decided we heard Russian.

Clouds moving in from the west.

Then, guess what – it started snowing. In earnest. And I don't mean a little snow flurry but a full-fledged snow storm. The better part of wisdom told us to catch one of the buses (free shuttle bus service takes you from one end of the South Rim Park to the other), go to the old historic part of the park where all the old hotels are located, and have an early lunch. On the bus ride there, we noticed the snow was starting to stick.

Snowing on the north rim

What to do? It was down-right cold and we were starting to question our better sense. But I decided I hadn't done all this talking Bill into going to the Grand Canyon for nothing. A nice lunch and hot tea later, it quit snowing. We headed for another bus to ride to the far end of the western line to see what we could see.

And am I ever glad we did!!!! We got off the bus at one place where the fog was so thick, we could not see anything except for white. Then through the mist, the canyon begin to take shape. Hardly any time later, the entire way to the bottom and all the rock formations were visible. Bill quickly snapped a couple of pictures – the mist reformed the views disappeared! One lady was passing by and we started chatting. I told her that on a day like this, the Grand Canyon was full of surprises – all you had to do was wait a few minutes for the fog to shift a little, then you could be totally surprised by what you saw. She broke into a big smile and said she had never thought about it that way before. Then off she went one way and off we went the other, all of us looking for more surprises.

This was one of our "surprise" photographs. Just a
few short minutes before Bill took this picture, it was
so foggy you couldn't see anything beyond the
handrail. Then the fog started to shift and this
view resulted. Mysterious looking.

And surprises we found. Three elk wandered out of the woods to the road side, a baby bunny came out of its burrow, birds started flying overhead, and the clouds cleared away. We spent the rest of the afternoon absolutely enthralled by the grandeur of the Grand Canyon.

P.S. Couple of fascinating facts about the Canyon:

It was formed over a time period of only six million years – a relatively short period of time in geological terms.

The head waters of the Colorado River are in the Rocky Mountain National Park. So why doesn't it form a huge canyon there? Because of the moister climate there, the river contributes to wide green valleys. But in the dry desert type climate of northern Arizona, it carved out the canyon.

And the reason it carved out the canyon is because of all the sentiment (rocks, sand, etc.) that gets dumped into the river acts like sandpaper grinding away at the layers of rock that formed over the millions of years. Add the wind and rain to the action of the river in this dry climate = Grand Canyon.

Until next time . . .

The following are just a fraction of the pictures we took :>)

These people had climbed over the guardrail and
were posing on the edge of a very tall cliff. Did I
think they were crazy? Well, my mama raised
no idiot!!!!