Adam's Blog July 16th, Day 11!

The first day at the Grand Canyon and we are going on our own to make sure that we get a chance to see what we want rather than be rushed by the tour tomorrow. On the drive out we stop by a Navajo Nation Park on the Little Colorado as a warm up for the real thing. In case you haven't heard it yet, at the Painted Desert there was a really large raven that Court called a pony and ever since there have been ravens everywhere we go. As soon as we step out of the van, two large ravens go hopping by in their normal creepy manner. We head out to the rim area and what a view there is. It is already breath taking, the various color strata, the fresh winds, the river running and of course the ravens soaring around on the winds carrying on. Seriously though, for the second time in this trip I hear Abigail saying wow. It is here that we realize that the cleaning that I had attempted to do to Court's camera to get rid of her spot didn't work. So I attempt to clean the sensor the best I can only to make it worse. I lose! So we resolve to make sure that we leave soon enough to head back in to Flagstaff to buy a replacement.

On to the Grand Canyon and the Desert View village. This is the first spot that we stop on the canyon official and it is complete with an observation tower. The view here is amazing and while walking around I see another lizard but not as ornate as the last one. There are SO many people here. We decide to go up the tower but so have 90% of the people out here so it is really crowded and hard to get at the best areas. Still it is expansive and awe inspiring. As we leave the area Abigail yells " A Hawaii plate!". Here I am thinking yeah right but when I turn around, sure enough there it was! A rare score on the license plate bingo card.

At the next couple of stops the wording is the same. Impressive views of a majestic canyon but a lot of annoying people. I keep finding myself getting pulled back from the vista by this person doing yoga on the rim with their boyfriend taking pictures, that person perching on the wall to look like they ate floating in the picture, the park rangers having to tell people not to get so close, not to mention that other than the entrance station and rangers we do not run in to a family speaking English for the first half of the visit. I was surprised that this was such an international site.

There are some more pueblo ruins her as well that we get to walk around a bit as well. They are actually actively excavating here as well which is cool to see. Grandview Point is the last stop before we head out and it really is grand. There just aren't words or the ability to take a picture that will capture it, so forgive me if there's not a lot of words here.

We leave the canyon for Flagstaff, pick up a bit of an upgrade for Courtney and head on out to Williams for our first night at the Grand Canyon Railroad Hotel. This place is much larger than I had expected it to be and getting a parking spot is nearly impossible but we check in and get our bags into the room so that we can head out to dinner. At the restaurant there is a buffet and live music. At first I dread that there is live music because I was worried that they were going to be mediocre at best but this guy was pretty good. A kind of bluesy, folksy kind of sound with a lot of original music. Back to the room for rest because tomorrow's going to be an exciting day.

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