We left LA nice and early... there should have been ample time, but we hit a fairly impressive traffic jam on 15 in Arizona. I must say the drive through Utah back down into AZ was lovely, it felt most of the time as though you are driving through a postcard. Kaibab National Forest is what you drive through right before you enter the park, H & I were both surprised at how green it was approaching the Grand Canyon, we saw herds of buffalo, deer and a few other things in the forest.
Going to visit the North Rim is something, one day, we've decided we would like to do again, perhaps with family with us and get a large cabin at the Grand Canyon Lodge. Now, lodging, there are two options if you are going to the North Rim, you can camp, or you can stay at the Lodge. Your nearest out of the park hotel is a good 40 mi away. I do recommend the Lodge, the views are worth it, convenience, and it's clean. It's busy though, so be sure to get in your dinner reservations early at the restaurant... we tried 3 hrs early, and still got the latest time available of 9:30pm. The food was excellent.
Along our drive, we noticed thunder, lightning and rain off in the distance, it's monsoon season in the canyon, and it led to a great evening of photos. We finally were able to make it into the park about an hour before sunset! Photography has become a hobby for me, but the thought of entering the Grand Canyon with maybe 30 minutes to figure out where to shoot sunset, that was intense.
When we first arrived the rain had ceased, so everywhere we turned we got rainbows!! When it was actually sunset though, H found a guy that had been volunteering here for 3 months and they started talking. That's what H does, he talks to random people, his talent not mine. The volunteer said in his time there, he had never seen a sunset as brilliant as ours. Truly, it was like watching the sky explode with new colors every few minutes.
The picture above is my very first picture taken in the Grand Canyon!
Two quick stories about the shot above:
1. H has no fear! How this guy survived until adulthood still amazes me.
2. Thank goodness for the gate/railings.. it is the only thing that caught our camera and kept it from going down into the canyon at that exact spot. I'm grateful I have any pictures to share!
Did you know that Canyons have their own weather inside them? I didn't. H did research and found out. This was a rainstorm going on inside the canyon we got to watch. There were also a few lightning strikes hitting down below us. Interesting to watch.
Right about this time a monsoonal rain burst hit, everyone ran to get inside the Lodge thinking sunset was now done. We waited outside a few more minutes in the rain and then we got the color burst finale that you see below. We were totally soaked and it was absolutely worth it.
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