Em N Ru: Grand Canyon Arizona

The Hotel Aspen Suites in Flagstaff proved restful. The king bed was comfortable, and Ru had a hide a bed and didn't complain. We crashed out around 11 and got up around 6am. None of us noticed the trains chugging by on the tracks across the street, the partying spring break guests, or the dripping faucet. I wanted to get to the canyon early to catch the sunrise, but it wasn't in the cards. We are pretty road weary today.

So we ate the buffet breakfast our hotel provided, which was as good as any Denny's, and hit the road. We got to the Grand Canyon around 9am. I read in the tour book that to beat the crowds you can use the east entrance to the park. Because its spring break I figured it might be a good idea. We were the only ones on the road for quite a while, and there was no wait at the gate. We paid our fee and drove to the first stop called the Watchtower. This tower was built in the 1930's and made with native materials. The view was certainly breathtaking. We walked up a spiral staircase to the top and enjoyed the panorama. Then we went to the observation deck and tried to take in the enormity of the canyon. You could barely see the muddy trickle of river at the bottom of the canyon.

It was a bright sunny morning, but bitterly cold. It was only 38 degrees while we were wandering around the Watchtower. As the morning went on the haze lifted the air warmed, but it never got above 55 degrees the whole time we were there. We drove the south rim road stopping at every pullout. We got out of the car and explored and took pictures, then we would get back in the car and warm up. The dark blue car was very cozy in the sun, so we were taking coats off, putting coats on...

After many stops we got to the main entrance to the south rim of the park called Mather point. Here we ran into the multitude of tour busses full of Asian tourists. (And they were wearing sensible shoes... go figure) We watched them for a while then got a cup of coffee in the cafe. It was colder here so we decided to nix our idea of hiking on the rim trail, and frankly the days of driving caught up with us so we decided to return to the jacuzzi tub and a late lunch at the hotel in Flagstaff. Let the siesta commence.

The car took this picture for us.

The model in the visitor center

I rented this movie to watch on the way!

Ruben and I being silly. Here's how he builds back seat tents. He was bummed he couldn't see sparks in the daytime, but found it was fun to stick strings and hair to his blanket using the static.