Grand Doesn't Begin to Describe It, and More Family Time

We were excited to get to the Grand Canyon and left pretty early. For most of our park adventures, we had to climb some pretty daunting mountains, but this was different. The land leading up to the park was generally flat, slightly rolling, and the drive was easy. As we approached Tusayan, which bills itself as the Gateway to the Grand Canyon, we passed several restaurants, a visitor’s center, an airport, and a grocery store. We made note of these resources, as we knew one of our tours would leave from the visitor’s center and one from the airport, and restaurants and grocery stores are hard to find in National Parks.

The first thing we noticed that set the Grand Canyon off from the other parks we have visited was the traffic into the park. There may have been a car or two ahead of us on entry into any of the other parks, but for the GC, there was a 25-minute wait at the gates. At first, we thought they didn’t have enough help for entry points, but as we edged closer, it seemed that every car had numerous questions for the ranger, as most cars took several minutes to clear through. When we finally reached our turn, we simply handed over our senior pass, my ID, and we were in. Although our GC stay was over Columbus Day weekend, it certainly seemed that this was the busiest of all the National Parks we had visited.

We had a reservation at the Yavapai Lodge in the Park. This is one of the largest facilities in the Canyon, and is laid out in motel-type buildings allowing you to park in front of your door. The Canyon rim is about a ½ mile walk from the Lodge. The buildings are near a general store, deli, bank and post office, and has a cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Our room was not ready when we arrived around 12:30, so we decided to drive over to the Bright Angel Lodge, which looks right out onto the rim.

Words are again inadequate to describe this. It is probably impossible not to ‘see’ the Grand Canyon your whole life. It is in movies, on postcards, TV. I’ve flown over it in a plane on the way to somewhere else. Because it is so ubiquitous, I was unprepared for the sense of wonder as I inched my way to the edge. From the back of the Bright Angel Lodge, we climbed down into the Lookout Studio. The Canyon is so deep. It is so wide. It seems to contain every color imaginable, set into rock and vegetation. Every shade of red through orange through yellow. Every shade of blue through baby to turquoise to purple. Move just a few inches and the light changes, reflecting new colors, exposing a cave there, a river here, yet another deep ravine. Bob snaps picture after picture, but I find myself immobilized, and emotional. I’m wearing sunglasses, and I’m glad, because tears are streaming from my eyes. The beauty of this place is overwhelming. Although there are many people, everyone is quiet. Speaking in whispers. We’re in a holy place.

We follow the rim around past the several lodges perched on the rim trail and then it starts to rain, so we head back to the car and back to Yavapai. The room still isn’t quite ready, so we grab a cup of coffee, sit by the big stone fireplace to warm up and talk to other guests until 3 pm. Bob loves showing pictures of Penny and telling people about our odyssey through the National Parks, and most people share their adventures, or plans for adventures, and it makes for a great way to pass the time. We meet people from all over the world next to that fireplace. I start looking for reservations for dinner, and find that services are limited in the park, as many of the restaurants aren’t open, although there are several sandwich-type places available. When our room is ready, we drive over, and catch a few of the service workers as we unload Penny. As always, Bob goes though Penny’s many attributes with the service folk who fill us in on the good restaurants in town. They also tell us that the park entry back up happens in the late morning and early afternoon, so going to Tusayan for dinner won’t be a problem. The room in the lodge is not fancy, but we have everything we need. We have found that hotels outside the parks are competitive with the amenities of other hotels, but hotels inside the parks seem to understand that the park itself is enough of a draw. On the drive out of the park for dinner we saw numerous elk quietly munching by the roadside, and slowed to take pictures. We ate at the Big E Steakhouse and Saloon, which was fine, grabbed some yogurt and coffee cream from the general store and headed back into the park. Yep, no traffic at this point. We drove slowly on our way back into the park, looking for more elk, but although traffic was light, many of cars seemed to be in a big hurry and we had to pull over often to let people by. C’mon people—this is a National Park! Slow down and look for the wildlife! If you want the fast vacation, head to Las Vegas!

Next day, we did a Pink Jeep Tour of the GC. This was a three-hour tour around the rim stopping at several points. Our guide was Rob and he did a fine job. However, this was the only park where I felt we could have done this tour ourselves. The maps given to us by the rangers gave a good idea of where to pull over into an observation spot and the road was not difficult or challenging for Penny or for us. Rob did have information about living and working in the Canyon area, but what really made this tour were the other guests. We traveled with two families. One was a Filipino family—retired dad and mom, and grown RN daughter. Daughter was a traveling nurse, stationed not too far from the GC. The other was a young couple, late twenties, who were camping about 10 miles from the park. The young couple were clearly in love and bounded like gazelles from the jeep at every stop onto and usually past any barrier rocks. At first I watched them in terror because I thought for sure one or both of them would fall over the side, but they proved to be sure-footed, and they were clearly having a blast. As for the family, the daughter would climb more carefully onto an outcropping, carefully arrange herself into a good picture, and demand that one or the other of her parents take the shot. And she usually found those pictures to be less than adequate, and required they be repeated. But everyone seemed good natured about it, and eventually dad started gingerly clambering onto more risky outcroppings for better pictures as well. The tour took us to the Desert View Watchtower, Navajo Point, a weird rock formation called Duck on Rock, and Moran Point, which actually had a plateau edge that could be accessed by the brave tourist, giving a great view over the canyon edge. Needless to say, I didn’t have the guts, but our gazelle couple clambered down and got some great selfies. When we got back to the tour base, we watched the IMAX movie of the GC, which was included as part of our tour. I wasn’t really too excited about seeing a movie after seeing the real thing, but the movie is quite good and gives a history of the GC, and man’s efforts to explore her.

We were closely watching the weather at this point, because, although it was nice, the temps were dropping and snow was being forecast in the mountains in New Mexico. We still had stops in Arizona and all of New Mexico to get through.

Next day, we were booked for a helicopter ride over the full canyon, including the North Rim. Our friends Tim and Cindy drove to this rim last year and said it was spectacular, and it is the least visited rim, but snow was predicted and the drive there was a long one, so we decided to go with the helicopter. Our pilot was Roy and he had a curated soundtrack for the flight including tracks from Top Gun, Lenny Kravitz, and Louis Armstrong. It was a great way to get the bird’s eye view, and I managed not to freak out. Bob had some pictures with Penny and the chopper and we were on our way. That evening, we had pancakes in Tusayan for dinner, spotted more elk on our way back into the park and prepared to bid the canyon goodbye.

The Grand Canyon took us off our Route 66 path and so did our next stop; Tucson, Arizona. Bob’s sister, Ellen, lives here, and it was our first time in the area to visit. The drive to Tucson is gorgeous, and we passed through Sedona, with its beautiful red rock buttes and canyons. We loved the Saguaro cactuses that began to dot the landscape in the Sonoran Desert. Ellen, who Bob calls Sis, has a beautiful home in Ventana Ridge, and she graciously gave us her bedroom when she saw how much stuff we had packed into Penny. And then she let Penny sleep in the garage! This was a treat for Penny, who has never done that before! Hope she won’t be spoiled! Sis’s daughter, Sue and her husband, Darrell, live nearby, and he is a great cook, so he made tacos and lasagna the two evenings we were there. We took advantage of Sis’s washer and dryer, and relaxed and caught up. It was a lot of fun to listen to their stories of growing up, and Bob took Sue and Darrell for a fast ride in Penny. The snow seemed to be holding off, but it wasn’t far behind us, and we don’t think Penny would be a fan of snow. It’s back to Route 66 now.