The Grand Canyon

We arrived at the Grand Canyon around 2:30 in the afternoon. It is an amazing place. The most amazing thing about it - beside how large and beautiful it is - it's amazing that there is just flat land and small pine trees as you drive up to the canyon, you don't even have any idea it is there until you are right at the edge of it. There really aren't words or pictures that can describe it - ever. You must experience it yourself. It was quite a cloudy day with some rain off in the distance. So there are a lot of cloud shadows on most of my pictures that afternoon.
This is Jim looking over the edge. Jim and a friend had made a trip to the Canyon 25 years ago. When he went then he walked the Bright Angel trail to the bottom - Phantom Ranch and back in one day. Now there are signs all over the trail to warn people not to attempt to walk to the bottom of the canyon and back in a day!
We got a room at the Red Feather Lodge just 2 miles south of the Park gate. The cost to get into the Park is $25.00 - we had just been to the Death Valley National Park and realized on getting to Grand Canyon we should have bought a National Park Pass for $50.00, so we purchased the pass at the Grand Canyon and the Park Ranger gave us credit for the $20.00 we had already spent at Death Valley when Jim showed him the receipt. That was a great purchase - we went into alot of National Parks after that and never had to pay again.

We had dinner and then went back to the Canyon to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful evening. It really is a special place. We then went to the IMAX Grand Canyon movie, it was very good. Watching the movie of the people going down the Colorado River in the rafts through the Canyon - now that would be a great trip to do -- maybe one day!!