Day Nine: The Grand Canyon

We slept great after the hot tub, had a small complimentary breakfast (english muffins and doughnuts) and left Camp Verde. We made our way up over the hills to the Grand Canyon. We stopped at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and drove around a little bit, there were a lot of hiking trails that looked like they would be interesting hikes but we wanted to use the daylight we had for seeing the Canyon.
We entered the canyon from the south east corner and the first canyon we came to I think was called the Colorado Canyon but I'm not sure about that. It was incredible!   It was so huge and deep, we both found that we had focusing issues when looking across and down and there was a definite sense of vertigo when you looked down from the edge. after taking in the immensity of the place and a huge amount of pictures we wandered around and Nick found a lizard! I took a picture of it and then the search began, we forgot our mission to see the canyon and started hunting lizards, we found quite a few, Nick even touched one, no captures though. Eventually we decided we should move on, on our way back to the car we stopped to talk to a few locals who were selling hand made jewelry, pottery and dream catchers.
We then headed up the road to the grand canyon, we talked to the woman at the ticket booth for a long time about a season pass for the parks, if you had receipts from other parks you had gone to they would be deducted from the cost and we somehow managed to scrounge up the receipt from White Sands NM, we were both amazed that it was still hanging around all crumpled up on the passenger side floor. We decided since we were going to be on the west coast and it is still spring it was worth getting the pass and then we would be able to use it all summer in the local area or for weekend trips. Excited about our shiny new pass we headed into the park.
The beginning of the park road was in the woods, or at least the closest to woods that they had in that area, so when we the trees broke off and we came into view of the canyon, the Grand Canyon, we were speechless. It was incredible, beyond incredible. Nick and I have seen a lot of things in our lives, but neither of us had seen anything to compare to this. The sheer magnitude of it was overwhelming, then you add in the beauty and the natural strength and grace of it and its almost to much to absorb. We stopped at the first view point, where you could see up, down and across the canyon, there was a viewing area at the edge of the canyon and a tower that you climb up for a higher view of the canyon, not that you needed it! They had just had a snow storm in the area a few days before, so even though it was hot, there was still snow on the ground and around the edges of the canyon. We spent a long time there looking at the canyon and taking pictures of it. Though taking pictures of it was a bit sad since I knew that no matter how good of a picture I took it could never ever capture what I was looking at. I knew this because of the hundreds of pictures of the Grand Canyon I have seen in my life and not one of them, no matter how beautiful and well done, had left me with anything that came close to preparing me for what I was seeing in person.  We spent our time enjoying the views. Slowly working our way north, stopping at every opportunity to take in the canyon some more and to take more futile photographs. We have to admit though that it got overwhelming, you can only take in so much before it all starts to become a blur of beauty and vastness. We could have sat and stared at it for hours, unfortunately it was starting to get dark and we were getting tired. we made it to all but the last viewing area before it really got too dark to see, but that's just a good excuse to go back some day! We would also like to do some hiking down in the canyon sometime. If any of you who have not been to the Grand Canyon ever get the opportunity to go, take it! It is well worth the trip, and from what I've heard, the north rim is even more beautiful than the south rim, I guess that means we're going to have to take another trip! We can even hit Zion, Arches and Capitol Reef while we're there.
When we left the Grand Canyon it was full dark, we drove south until we got to Williams and stayed in an old 50's motor lodge. It was a very quaint place, they even had cabooses and train cars that you could stay in, though they were full and we couldn't afford to stay in one any way. Our room was small and a little rustic but in a good way, we really liked both the people and the place. It cooled down a lot in the night, it was quite chilly by the time we were going to out room, and by quite chilly I mean that it was below freezing :) At least we weren't trying to camp!