The Grand Canyon

Drove to the north rim of the Grand Canyon today. It's quite a ways from here, close to 3 hr drive. On the road by 9AM & with the time difference, were there by 11:00 AM. Very scenic all the way there. It's a national park site, so very well done. There is a lodge you can stay at & most of the area is kept as pristine wilderness.

The area is amazingly open. There are no fences or guard rails along the edge of the canyon footpath, except for a couple of lookout points. Mostly it is a row of rocks along the footpath. The canyon is about 1.6km or 1 mile deep at this point and about 10 miles wide. The elevation is about 8,700 ft, so the weather was a lot cooler up there. When we got there it was about 66F & on the way out when we got to the valley it was 88F, so quite a difference. The view is, as you would expect, spectacular. The material says on a poor day you can see about 65 miles, on a good day up to 150 miles. Kind of gave me the willies looking down from the footpath. Had lunch sitting on a big rock overlooking the canyon. Cheese, Ritz crackers & some nice ham sausage from Mundare.

On the way back took a differnent route to try and get cell phone service. Finally got full service at Kanab, so we phoned Katie in England. Happy birthday darling, hope your 12th birthday was very special.

Came back through Zion park from the east gate. It's very different than the part we saw earlier. There are 2 long tunnels through the mountain, the longest being 1 1/2 miles long. There were openings along the tunnel, otherwise it was lights on. There are height & width restrictions for the tunnel traffic & lots of hairpin turns on the west side to get down to the canyon valley.

It was hot when we got back to the RV park, about 98F, so after dinner we went for a swim in the pool. It was very refreshing. This makes twice in the pool for me this week, kind of a record.

Sorry we missed your birthday Cassandra, hope your day was special. We love you. Happy Birthday!