There She Goes Again

Had a delightful breakfast of Greek Yogurt from Safeway before we began our drive to – oh my god, finally! – The Grand Canyon.  We were a few minutes out of Cortez when Charlotte realized she can’t find her wallet.  Back to the hotel, not there; call Mesa Verde to see if they have it, no luck; ransack the hotel room and all of our bags; turn the car inside out; ransack some more; turn car inside out again and there it is – in the glovebox where it has been all throughout the trip.  Never a dull moment with us.    Next up, The Four Corners. 

Definitely not what I expected.  Nothing ever is though, is it?  Unless you’ve gone out to Flickr to look at photos beforehand, that is.  Honestly, I was thinking it was going to be a plaque in the middle of a grass field.  Hello?  Where the hell have I been for the past week?  A grass field?  It’s an elevated large cement area with flags all around it and Indian merchandise stalls all around that.  Tacky and well worth the time and money; at least Charlotte and I thought so.  And guess what?  Indians don’t refer to themselves as Native Americans, they call themselves Indians.  Stupid political correctness.

Driving, driving, driving, driving.  Holy cow – what’s the big canyon over there?  That’s not even the Grand Canyon and it’s impressive.  Hey – there’s a Grand Canyon National park sign.  OMG, we’re here.  I’m really here.  I’m going to see the Grand Canyon!  We stopped at “First Viewpoint for Grand Canyon” (The Watchtower and yes, the sign really says ‘First Viewpoint…’) and I saw the Immense, Amazing, Incredible Grand Canyon for the first time.  Big and large and incredible but from a photography perspective it looks like crap right now because the light sucks.  That’s OK though, my eyes are working fine and it is just spectacular.  I feel embarrassed that I live in this country and it’s taken me so long to get here!

We drove along stopping at various viewpoints so I could take it all in.  John and Charlotte have been here several times so I’m very grateful they were willing to come back so I could finally see this.  We parked at the General Market which is just massive and has everything you could want or need to stay here for a quite a while.  We walked over to the Rim Trail via the Visitor Center.  The Park Service has really outdone themselves here.  The information they’ve got available answers every question you could think of and the facilities are stellar.  We walked for about an hour or two and at every turn I oohed and aahed, as is required.  Charlotte and John were kind enough to point out the Bright Angel Trail which they claim I’m hiking tomorrow.  We’ll see about that one.

We stayed just outside the Park and the dinner options were limited.  We ended up at We Cook Pizza and Pasta (yes, that’s really the name) and my pizza was surprisingly yummy.  If you’re there don’t be afraid to eat at We Cook – it’s much better than you’d expect.