Sam and I have never been to the Grand Canyon before, though we've considered making that detour on our way to Arizona before. It seemed like a good place to go for an anniversary trip! It is just as spectacular as we imagined it would be—although it is hard to really comprehend anything on that scale. It didn't really seem so much huger than Canyonlands or Flaming Gorge and it didn't make me think, "Wow, nothing I have ever seen before is anything like this!" But it IS bigger, and you realize that when you get a glimpse of some tiny little white lines of rapids down in the Colorado River and then read a sign telling you those rapids are as big as a thirty-story building. !!!
We stayed in this unusual dome tent-ish thing, about a half hour away from the canyon.
It had a stove in it, and a bed, and was much nicer than a real tent, as you can see.
And there was a big window for looking out at the sunrise…
And a skylight for looking at the stars. I'd had high hopes for the stars, but the moon was full the nights we were there, and while it was bright and beautiful, it made the stars themselves…rather negligable.
It got really cold at night, but the pellet stove kept us warm. It made such lovely crackling fiery sounds, too. Luckily we were able to get a bit of a cellular signal, because Sebastian was frantically texting for help with the sacrament meeting talk he was giving the next day, and I was able to sit snugly in our little dome and give him suggestions.
Thanks to the wonders of having an online sacrament meeting broadcast, we were able to find a place with wifi in one of the Visitor Center parking lots at the Grand Canyon and watch Seb's talk! He did a good job.
These pictures are going to be boring, because they all look basically the same: a high desert landscape with a bunch of canyon-y cliffs and mesas stretching off far into the distance. Still, in person each section is awe-inspiring in its own way, and we loved each different vantage point. We walked along the rim for a long time, but the canyon is so big that you really have to go several miles before you are looking at much of a new prospect down below.
Can you spy Sam in this picture? That reminds me that when we told the kids that we were going to the Grand Canyon, three of the older ones said (at separate times), "Oh good, you won't have to worry about the little ones falling in." I guess this is a universal sentiment. I WAS glad not to have to worry about that.
The sunset light on the canyon was really pretty.
And there is that full moon!
It was a beautiful place to visit!
And here is a bonus picture of Ziggy after we got home. We never bring things home to our kids (there are too many of them) but somehow this time we had found little bead bracelets for the girls, and cool rocks for the boys, and there was only poor Ziggy left with nothing. So we got him this strange and terrifying floppy plastic dinosaur head from some random toy shop, knowing that the scarier something is, the more he likes it. And he did like it. Look at his delighted face!
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