McMillan's Ho! : It sure is Grand

Ah, Boulder Beach campground. I think I could have l lived there forever. But there are places to see highways to travel and so we left the warmth of Lake Mead for somewhere a little cooler. Temperature wise and view wise. We were off to go check out a rather famous hole in the ground carved out by a famous river.

Any guesses?

The Grand Canyon!

After traveling for several hours on Monday, climbing several thousand feet onto the Colorado Plateau, and subsequently dropping 30 F in temperature, we settled ourselves into the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park, in Williams, AZ, caught up on laundry, grocery shopped, splashed in their indoor pool and settled in for a rather chilly (below freezing!) night.

Today we drove to the Grand Canyon, about an hour north along highway 64.

The highway from Williams offers no clues to the nearby presence of an enormous canyon. In fact, right up until you walk past the last of the Douglas fir trees, and look out on the abyss it's really not obvious. It reminded me quite strongly of the abrupt scenery change you experience when going to Dinosaur Provincial Park, in Alberta (although that is on a much smaller scale), where the land just drops away.

Just like our trip over the Top of the World highway, pictures cannot do justice to the vista. And just like that highway the views are all out and down and down and out and down some more. Miles and miles wide and a mile deep, the scale of it is really incomprehensible, even standing on the rim, looking at it.

We arrived at the Canyon near noon and stayed until 5ish, which gave us time to explore, walk the canyon rim trail (and take the free shuttles), learn some of the geologic and cultural history of the canyon and watch the light change on the canyon walls, painting the same view completely differently from one hour to the next.

The canyon walls are near vertical steep, and the trails unforgiving and narrow, so given the ages/ abilities of the kids (and both their parent’s intense desire to keep them safe – especially since Morgan loves to bounce and run with his head down, which has scared the crap outta me many times!) we stayed on the rim trails and didn't venture down. Looking out at the tiny snaking trails, I think that to really experience the canyon one must descend from the heights (and perhaps someday we will return to test that theory). That said, the rim, and the multitude of lookout points available along it give a pretty good view from above!

I think I should let the pictures do the talking…