Epic Road Trip: Day 11 - Grand Canyon National Park

In December of 2010, Oscar and I drove to the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas and could not see a single thing due to the fog. We vowed to come back and actually see it one day, and now thanks to our July 18th trip, that's one more thing we can check off on our bucket list. It's one of those jaw dropping, awe inspiring things that you just have to see at some point in your life. We first visited a couple friends of mine in Mesa the night before, stayed in a huge hotel room that was incredibly well priced for everything that came with it, and then drove up to the Grand Canyon the next day coming in through the east entrance.

Before you get into the park, there's a lookout area belonging to the Native Americans of the area. The Colorado river shaped all these crevices, which is pretty remarkable to think about when you look at the size of the river today.

The first lookout available when you arrive in the park from the east is the Desert View.

The cool thing here is going up into the watchtower and seeing the petroglyph decorations.

This is the view from the observation area below the tower. Pretty sweet!

As we continued driving towards Grand Canyon Village, we saw a couple of moose. We also saw a female elk with her baby as we drove into our campsite that evening. Oscar hadn't noticed them in the dark and nearly drove into them. In spite of that, they barely even acknowledged our presence. 

It's hard to believe this now tiny river is responsible fore shaping this grandest of all canyons.

I wanted to get a good couples picture, but we never got a fantastic shot of the two of us together. People don't know how to hold the iPad properly so it comes out blurry or shadowed.

Though we did get some cute individual shots of us.

I'd definitely recommend taking the shuttle bus to Hermit's rest. It's totally worth the time, and the lookouts at Pima and Hopi point were my favorites.

And to finish up a beautiful day of sightseeing, we inadvertently arrived in this part of the park just in time for a glorious sunset.

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