The GRAND Canyon!!!

We entered Arizona and stopped at the very nice visitors' center just before it was closing. Mom was not too happy to see this sign after we had just been at the Rattlesnake Museum!



We decided to drive to Flagstaff and spend the night there. We called my brother to tell him that we were finally in the same time zone as him, Pacific time. So we are 3 hours behind all of you on the east coast. When we are eating breakfast, most of you are getting ready to eat lunch. I couldn't believe we were almost to our destination! The next morning we got up and headed to the Grand Canyon. When we first arrived in the park we watched an Imax movie about the Grand Canyon. It is the most viewed Imax movie in the country. There were people from all over the world there, and I heard so many different languages around me. The movie reenacted when the first explorer made it through the whole length of the Colorado River. He was a one armed Civil War veteran who braved the rapids and unknown areas with a crew of men in little boats.



After the movie we drove to the Southern Rim and walked out to some different spots to view the amazing Grand Canyon. When I first saw it, it almost looked like a painting to me. It didn't seem real! It is so huge that you simply cannot comprehend what you are looking at. It's amazing to think that there are probably so many places within the canyon that have never been seen by humans. Here are a few pictures for you...






And some more pictures...




I couldn't help taking this picture. The guy was not exactly dressed to hike around the Grand Canyon! He was wearing a nice dress shirt and paints and his cowboy hat, and it just seemed a little strange to me so I snapped a shot. Not to mention that it was about 100 degrees so he had to be a little warm!

We went to a little observation museum that apparently has the best view of the canyon. When you walked into the small museum, the walls are glass and on the first wall there was a giant frame around the glass so it looks like a painting. Etched into the glass was a quote from Teddy Roosevelt about preserving the grand canyon for all the generations to come.




There were all sorts of these signs everywhere in the park. I was certainly not one of the crazy ones who were climbing off the trails and going out on the ledges. When a sign tells me that people die here from going off the trails...I make sure to stay on the trails!




We left the Grand Canyon and began our final stretch of driving. Well at least for the first half of our trip! Let me tell you...the stretch of land between the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam in Nevada is pretty barren. There's not much there but open land, a few trailers, and lots of bugs that splatter on your windshield!



We drove over the Hoover Dam and missed the tiny sign that welcomed us to Nevada. But we are going to go back and tour the Hoover Dam with my brother so I will get pictures then. At about 7:00 at night we pulled up to my brother's driveway in Las Vegas. We had driven over 3,000 miles and gone through 10 states!!! So far the trip has been amazing, and I cannot believe how much I have seen and done. Now we will spend a few days in Las Vegas before we head back to the east coast going the northern route. Next entry I will post some pictures of our visit in Las Vegas.