Grand Canyon

We decided since our time in New Mexico is drawing short, we needed to visit the Grand Canyon. Dave had been there when he was young (that's him below on the right with the T-shirt saying "I dug the Grand Canyon." We tried everywhere to find a similar t-shirt for tommy but couldn't find one!)


However, I had never been there before. We have seen a lot of amazing parks, but we both thought the Grand Canyon was quite spectacular. We drove there Friday night thinking it was only 5 hours away but it ended up being about 7 and a half hours. We stayed Friday night in Flagstaff, Arizona, and arrived at the Grand Canyon Saturday morning.




Saturday we hiked down the Bright Angel Trail a mile and a half and were told by the Ranger there, in a not so nice way, to turn around or he would "report us." I was confused and said "For what?" And the reply was if we were going further we would be endangering the life of an infant. Maybe in the middle of the summer, but it was only the middle of May and it wasn't super hot yet. But, we turned around anyway and went back up. We both thought going up the steep side of the canyon was much better than going down - my knees were killing the next day from the mile and a half straight down! The universal comment by everyone we passed was, (referring to Tommy in the backpack), "Now THAT's the way to see the Grand Canyon!!"




We stayed overnight in the El Tovar hotel which perches on the edge of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is a great place - built decades ago but renovated in 2005 so it has all the old charm but nice, modern accomodations. The only thing that was a hassle was there was no elevator so everytime we came and went we had to pick up Tom's stroller and carry it up or down the stairs. And after our knees were tired from the hike, this became more of a problem!!

Sunday morning we walked along the paved trail which goes for several miles along the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was beautiful to see the canyon from different angles and it was especially pretty in the early morning light. It was also surprising just how many languages you hear as you pass other visitors - but it makes sense that it draws a crowd as it truly is one of the world's natural wonders.

We drove back to Albuquerque Sunday afternoon. We listened to an interesting book in the car called "Ender's Game" which kept us entertained. I was pretty worried about how Tommy was going to handle this long trip, but he did great!! I was especially impressed with how he handled sitting in the car seat so long! It made us encouraged to take more trips.