Grand Canyon

We left LAS Vegas behind - didn't mind leaving it - and saw dirt devils - little dirt tornados - on the way out of town.  The boys were fascinated!  All I could think of was the tasmanian devil from the cartoons of my youth!

You can just see it in the distance.  A dusty, small tornado.

Anyhow, we took a non-hurried drive to Tusayan, Arizona.  It's amazing that the boys did NOT play their nintendos the whole way - I actually caught Andrew just looking out the window at things.  We tried to impress on them that the whole country was different looking - not just what they see out their backyards.  What were the differences?  No grass, check.  Adobe houses, check.  Tile roofs, check.  Just want them to be aware of what's out there.

Tusayan turned out to be a 2 1/2 block town just a few miles outside of the grand canyon.  I would so stay in this town again.  It all looks relatively new.  Many hotels, a few restaurants and a couple of shops.  Oh, and a gas station.  Everything is so close together you walk everywhere.  We ate in two of the local places - and at a Wendy's.  The prices at Wendy's were TWICE what they were at the one in Charleston.  Sigh.  We went to a steak place - which I wouldn't visit again.  And a great little pizza place recommended to us by our Pink Jeep tour guide.  So glad Mike suggested we take this tour.  We saw so much more than we ever would have on our own.  We went to the East Rim and saw things that our tour guide explained to us.  Did you know the FAA was started because of a plane crash in the grand canyon?  Well, neither did I!  Just interesting little facts, and it was nice to have someone there to get all four of us in a picture.  (You know, Mom is rarely IN the photo, since she always is the one taking the photo!)

It really is a beautiful sight to behold.  While at the South Rim, we hiked a little bit.  Just enough to say we did it.  We went down the Bright Angel Trail to the first tunnel.  Very cool, and I felt that altitude difference coming back up.  This is where I wish I were more fit. I know the boys could have easily gone down further on the trail, but I was worried about ME getting back up!  We saw a rattlesnake, chipmunks, deer and mule poop.  No, we did not take the mule trip nor did we see any coming back up the trail.  The boys had fun just being goofy in a beautiful place

It was cool, believe it or not.  When we arrived in Tusayan, I'm guessing 58*.  When we toured with Pink Jeeps in the morning (we started about 1030) it was 70*.  I would bet it only got to 80* or 82* the whole day.  It was very pleasant, and as Colin said, "I don't sweat in this dry heat!"  I kinda liked it.  But we ended up buying the boys jackets because I had forgotten to tell them to pack those.  And I knew it would be cool in Durango and Silverton...which will be the next posting!