Grand Canyon Day 2: From the Rim

After finishing the camping and river rafting trip, we found a hotel room to be a welcome relief. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Grand Canyon Village. It was a remarkably long drive to get from the end of the canyon back up to the national park, part of it along the famous Route 66. It’s just a straight road, but they have billboards from the fifties which are really cool. I’m glad we traveled on it. They had this wall at the lodge showing just how popular it has been for a long time.

We went out for pizza in Grand Canyon Village and then went on a jeep tour with about 8 other people. Our guide was quite the character. She lives on a huge piece of land where she trucks in her water from a town that’s pretty far away. She has big water tanks on the back of a pickup truck that she uses only for that. There is no water on the rim, it’s all brought in. The Native name for the area means Land of No Water. I asked her if she would get snowed-in during the winter and she said yes. Usually she can plow her road while it’s snowing, so it never gets too deep, but the winter before, it came down too fast, and she was snowed-in for two weeks. I enjoyed hearing how locals live.

She took us down a dirt road that ran along the edge of the national forest. There were two French men who were sad because they didn’t get a picture of this deer, and I worked out how to say in French that I had a picture and could give it to them. I couldn’t remember the verb for send but give worked. I emailed it to them. They were happy to get the picture and I was happy I could remember enough French to make myself understood.

She pointed out a trench that ran beside the train tracks and said they pump water through the trench to keep the wildlife alive. Nice.

We passed where they keep the burros who carry riders down into the canyon. She said that when you go to sign up they make you watch a video of what it’s like riding the narrow trails down, and 70 percent of people don’t sign up after that. Haha! I know to which group I would belong. I’m a little afraid of heights. I think the people who do the ride must lack that fear or can overcome it.

After we were through the forest, we arrived at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Wow. I really loved this perspective especially after having seen it from below. I think it was a good order for seeing the Grand Canyon.

As we were about to start this section of the tour, the two French men wandered away from the group, I couldn’t figure out how to get their attention. No one knew their names. She called out Viva La France! And they turned around, grinned and came back to the tour. We took these photos among many others.

We went to a different place for the sunset.

We saw more things in Arizona which I will share another time.