Good Morning Grand Canyon!!!
The weather channel predicted dreadful calamity. The cashiers in the shops are all warning everyone that a "big storm is coming in." Someone said twelve inches and blizzard conditions.
And we think...
Hmmmm. Let's stay a little longer anyway! A conclusion made by Minnesotans...a little foolish perhaps, but undaunted by tales of fierce weather.
The views this morning were still beautiful, if a little more obscure and less extensive than yesterday. The clouds started rolling in by late morning. The temp dropped and the wind picked up later, but it was still beautiful!
Bright Angel Canyon at sunrise
The little yellow splotch of trees is Ghost Ranch, a place along the Colorado river for hikers, etc., to stay on their way through the canyon. It really is a desert down there except for a few green places where the river or a little tributary creates a small oasis. If it is around 85 degrees at the rim of the canyon, it could be well over 100 degrees at the bottom.
Daddy explained the Grand Canyon well. He says there are some places where you see one view and you have seen it all. The Grand Canyon was not remotely like that. Every time you looked there was something new to see. Every view was unique. I think all of us were pleasantly surprised in that way.
We were thankful to get a family picture before there was nothing to see. You can see the bank of clouds rolling in over the landscape behind us. Its hard to believe you are up around 7,000 feet elevation at the rim, but it registers when many of the cloud formations are below or around you.
Here we are walking towards the Desert View Tower. All of us were fairly chilled by this time, so any views we could see while indoors were attractive to us. There was a warm fire and a beautiful Christmas tree and a fun gift-shop inside the tower. Here as well as everywhere else, we were awed again by the views from the added height.
Just for anyone who was wondering...
The morning sun shining through the clouds and painting alternate light the shadow on the terrain.
A close up through the telescope of another set of amazing rapids. Ben said that it is four foot-ball fields long!!! It doesn't look like that in this shot, but that gives you an idea of the scale of all the other pictures we have taken...our camera won't zoom in this far even on digital zoom.
We left the last view behind us around 10:30 am.
Goodbye Grand Canyon!
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