To The Depths: The Grand Canyon

Hello friends, family and followers! This is Tyler writing to you today. The past two days, Thursday and Friday, we spent at the Grand Canyon. I had the privilege of traveling here twice before in the past, but was very excited to share the experience with my wife. 

Wednesday night we found ourselves sleeping in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Flagstaff, AZ and then drove two hours Thursday morning to arrive at the park. We first hit up the Visitors Center to gain a little bit of a background and watch a short film about the Grand Canyon. We then hopped on a shuttle bus that took us to Bright Angel Trailhead, which is the hike we (I) decided to take. There are three main levels to the hike: 3 miles roundtrip, 6 miles roundtrip and 9 miles roundtrip. I initially had the desire to do the 6 miles hike, but the heat and exhaustion hit us quick. Thus, the 3 mile hike it was. Despite not going overly deep into the canyon, the views we incredible. The red rock dust on our shoes, socks and up our legs was not so pretty. 

Since we opted for the shorter route, we spent the rest of our day visiting some of the museums to gain a bit of a background on the park. Once we felt we had seen enough, we drove to the campground that we had made reservations at a few days prior. Registration was easy, we found our site, and were super excited to set up our tent for the first time on this trip! We got out the tarp for underneath the tent, found the polls that form the skeleton of the tent, but wait....where was the actual tent?! "You gotta be kidding me!" I exclaimed... a few times. Yes, after traveling 5,000+ miles, we only now realized that we must have left the tent at home. Wow. So, our truck it was.

Since most of the trails into the canyon are quite grueling and long, on Friday we agreed to take it easier and walk on a section of the Rim Trails, that simply walk along the rim of the canyon on both paved and dirt pathways. This ended up being a great way to spend our morning. We walked 4.5 miles from Mohave Point to Hermit's Rest. It was nice to walk and talk together as well as see some great views of the canyon.

HI MOM!!! :) 

Kaddie lookin' pretty and keeping it safe. 

After visiting a few more museums, along with a much needed shower, we decided that our time at the Grand Canyon was complete so we headed for Zion National Park in Utah. By 9:30pm, without stopping for dinner, we made it to Hurricane, UT, which is just outside the park.

Thursday evening, while still at the Grand Canyon, we were able to experience an incredible sunset over the canyon. I must quote my wife here because in talking about the next day, she said it beautifully  about the large crowd of people who were gathered to view the spectacle as we were: 

"They were all there to meet God and didn't even know it."

Until next time, love ty and kaddie