The Grand Canyon.........was so absolutely grand!

We arrived at the Grand Canyon at sunset, which was the perfect time to get my first view of the canyon.  The colors were amazing and I was so thrilled to finally be seeing this beautiful place!  Theodore Roosevelt was right when he said,  

"Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see."

We headed to our room at the Bright Angel Lodge.  We stayed in Bucky O'Neill's original cabin, which was so very cool!  It reminded me of our lower cottage in Spofford lake, which was a great connection to home.

On the way to dinner, there seemed to be a group of people gathered in one spot.  We headed over there to see what the fuss was about.  I guess someone else was hungry, too!

Dinner was wonderful in the Arizona Room.  We walked around a bit and checked out the El Tovar, which is the grand lodge on the South Rim.  It was beautiful, but for $170.00 to $425.00 a night, we passed.  Our room was only $90.00 a night and had the same great view once we left it.

I couldn't believe how clear the sky was, and how many stars we could see.  As I gazed up at the sky, a shooting star traveled across it!!  What a gift!!

We spent the next few days taking the bus system around to the different lookout points.  There are three different routes....the red, the blue and the green.  To see the lookout points on either the red or green line, you must take the shuttle bus.  You can only drive your car along the blue line section.
Mike got a little upset with me on this very windy day when he took this picture:	He was afraid I might blow off, and for a minute, so was I!!

So many different museums, studios, lookout points.  Many of the buildings there were designed by Mary Colter, the chief designer for the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad. 

Her buildings were absolutely amazing!

 This was one HUGE fireplace inside a bookstore she designed!



As you can see from the blue sky, we had amazing weather the few days we were there!  You could stand in one spot for an hour and take picture after picture and the light was ever-changing, so every picture would be different.  The way the sun reflected off the walls of the canyon was indescribable.

	Sunset the second day

Mike wasn't too happy with me whenever I goofed around!

We hiked down the Bright Angel Trail for just a little bit.  This is the trail you hike down to get to Indian Spring and Phantom Ranch.  There you can stay overnight and hike back up again the next day.  We didn't go down too far, but went far enough to get these cool pictures:
	 Here you can see the rest of the trail below us......no, thanks!
One of the lookout points designed by Mary Colter was called the Watchtower.  Here you could walk up the stairs to the very top and the view was incredible.  Just think of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and you get the idea.  Inside were beautiful paintings on all the walls.

The view from the Watchtower lookout point:

Let me say that as beautiful as the canyon was from where we were staying at Bright Angel Lodge, I kept feeling like there should be MORE......where we were on the South Rim was kind of in a cup formation, with walls protruding out on both the left and the right sides, so you could only see so far.  It wasn't until we headed out of the South Rim area and stopped at different points along the way, that I got what I was looking for......at the Lipan Point overlook.  Finally, there was the Grand Canyon I felt I had been missing all along!!  Where you could see for miles and miles and miles!

I actually had to sit down for a moment to take it all in.....and cried......it was what I had been missing, as wonderful as all I had seen before had been, and I had finally found it!  It was what I had come to see; it had been lost, and now was found.

~Karen