Grand Canyon (from the south rim)

We woke up early so that we could drive to the south rim of the Grand Canyon before the roads were too crowded. We ended up at the south rim at 9:00 and hopped on the shuttle towards the Grand Canyon Village. Even though we were early, the bus was still filled to the brim!

Our first stop was the "rim walk," a ranger-led geology program that followed a portion of the Rim Trail. We enjoyed the talk and tried our best to stay in the shade with the one-hundred degree heat! We got to see a California condor floating on updrafts from the canyon. The ranger told us that there are only 180 wild birds worldwide!



Hungry, we headed back towards the lodge where everyone was standing outside. It turns out there was a fire-alarm so we waited outside the "Arizona Room." Once everyone went back in, we were the first to get a table with a view of the canyon. We had identical meals: roasted red pepper soup and beef brisket - yum!

We walked the rim trail and a portion of the Bright Angel Trail but the heat (and smell of baking mule dung) kept us from descending too far into the canyon. We went back for a great ranger-led history talk on early impressions of the Grand Canyon. It was more story-telling than history.



Driving out through the eastern road, we stopped at many of the overlooks, including the watchtower at Desert Point! We took more pictures than we'll ever need realizing that the Grand Canyon is just too big to capture with a camera...