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Monday 24 May 2010

Grand Canyon

Next stop on our road trip was the Grand Canyon. We'd left a full day to drive to Tusayan from Boulder city, so when we saw a sign that said 'SkyWalk, next exit, 49 miles' we decided 'why not?'... The reason why not is that the last 25 miles or so are down a dirt road - a very twisty and bumpy dirt road... we got there at about lunch time. Being a captive audience we were happy to pay the many $$ to get onto the Hualapai Nation, and to walk the skywalk (did I ever say I am absolutely dreadful with heights. Can barely change a light bulb... hmm, this could have gone very wrong, very quickly!).


The SkyWalk

As we were waiting someone told me the glass was German - for some reason that seemed like a GOOD THING, and so I carefully shuffled out onto the glass, carefully looking UP. The view on the flat was ASTOUNDING. So CAREFULLY (and holding onto Eddy with all my might) I crossed over to the outside edge. The photographers were great - getting us to pose really made me forget the height. In the end I even LOOKED DOWN... THROUGH THE GLASS... and walked without holding on for dear life :)

To be honest I didn't need to go on the skywalk to enjoy the wonderful views... but I'm really pleased I did.


Grand Canyon West - near the sky walk

It was a really fun detour but we didn't get to our next hotel until about 10pm. the next morning we went to Grand Canyon Village and the South Rim... OMG, the views here were even more stupendous...





We hiked around the south rim for most of the day... until the sole fell off Eddy's walking boot. It was a bit like a cross between a boot and a flip flop... We took the bus as far as we could get but it really put paid to our exploration. That night we ate at the El Tovar hotel, right on the edge of the canyon. We had a canyon view table, but at 9pm all you can see is black! The food was excellent though.

When we left to drive back to our hotel, it was really, really quiet and still. It was just starting to snow and as we went around the side of the hotel we saw a mule deer just a few yards away - a totally magical moment! One of my favourite memories ever.

1 comment:

Giovanna said...

Thanks for sharing your memories of this wonderful place! Really enjoyed reading you post.