October Trip 2.4: Grand Canyon National Park Day 1 (Oct 11)

On Oct 10, Sunday, after spending two wonderful days in Los Alamos, we finally took the plane from Albuquerque to Phoenix, and from there we drove to Grand Canyon National Park about 4 hours away.

1. We almost missed the plane in Albuquerque due to my over-confidence of time. We arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before time, and sat in a cafe about 100meters from our gate for more than 1.5 hours. Though boarding started at 11.30am, we went to the gate only at 11.40am...and the flight was 11.50am. Hahaha. Good thing they didn't give our seats to others!

2. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is HUGE. Huge with lots of travelers. How many travelers? So many that they had to separate the car rental services in another building outside the airport itself, and we had to take a shuttle bus to the Car Rental Services. The Car Rental Services building is a 4 storey building with car parks below filled with rental cars. We did the paperwork upstairs, then took the lift down to the lower floors to our car (the key's already in the car), and drove out of the building. We had to show our documents at the exit of the parking lot of course. I have been to many international airports, but this was the first I have seen that has a such a big and fleshed out car rental service building on its own.

3. On our way to Grand Canyon, we stopped at Rock Springs for lunch. We didn't know what kind of town it was, and I was expecting lunch at McDonald's or something. Coincidentally however, Rock Springs was a kind of famous tourist spot because it used to be a stop-over for miners and travelers alike. There is a restaurant/saloon there with a long history of glamourous patrons. We ate there of course. Apparently the restaurant is also famous for its pies, so we bought a blackberry pie to go.



We finally reached Grand Canyon National Park around 6pm. Our hotel is the Red Feather Inn in Tucayan, a mile south of the actual Park entrance. We simply checked in, had dinner then slept. Hahaha.

The next day (Oct 11) we finally ventured into Grand Canyon National Park. For the first day, we walked the Rim Trail along Hermit's Drive. I don't think I need to write much here, let the pictures do the talking.

 Mom had trouble getting the right composition...but she's improving!

 Sunset at Lipan Point. This was around 5.45pm. After we finished our walking of the Rim Trail at Hermit's Drive, we drove on Desert View Drive to Lipan Point.

Today we walked from 9+am to 4pm, and covered about 4.2km. Mom was quite awesome, never showed any signs of fatigue.

The scale of the Grand Canyon is truly astounding. In fact it's so huge that my mind has trouble wrapping around it. After some view points, it all seemed to be same--vast, deep, rugged, far. Yet it was still very addictive to walk to the next view point and see how the Canyon looks like from a different angle. Colorado River seems so small in the midst of the vertical canyon walls that it's unimaginable that this river was the main protagonist for much of the Canyon we see today.