Grand Time in Arizona

Shortly after we arrived at the Grand Canyon, I overheard someone say, “This is better than the big hole we saw yesterday.”

Perhaps the person referred to Meteor Crater Natural Monument, located off of I-40 between Flagstaff and Winslow, roughly 80-100 miles (129-161 kilometers) southeast of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim.


My parents and I had also visited the crater on the previous day (the meteor crater, not the Grand Canyon). As we approached the entrance to this cosmic pothole, I cynically remarked, “If I had a big hole in the ground, I would try to charge people to see it, too.” By the time we left, though, I decided that the experience had been worthwhile indeed. I was also ready to proceed to bigger and grander things.





The Grand Canyon park service staff, especially the shuttle bus drivers, thoroughly impressed me. All I expected bus drivers to do was get me from Point A to Point B. At the Grand Canyon, each driver—with very few exceptions—went above and beyond the call of duty, as though their personal mission were to entertain visitors. Part of the shuttle bus drivers’ job description must be “strong sense of humor” because they were all really funny.


One bus driver told stories of those who had taken the “speed tour” of the Grand Canyon. “You don’t want to take the speed tour,” he said, clarifying that he meant those who had fallen off trails and quickly found themselves in the depths of the canyon.





The driver made a point to tell one such story that ended well. After slipping off a trail, an 82-year-old man rolled most of the way to a landing 150 feet (46 meters) below, stopping just short of a 3000-foot (914-meter) drop to the bottom of the canyon. Four and a half hours later, when park rangers had descended to his level with ropes, the man was still taking pictures.

That octogenarian is an inspiration to us all. The Grand Canyon is majestic, breathtaking and utterly un-capture-able through pictures. None of that stopped me from trying. I took nearly 400 pictures. My blog will spare you from most of those. I leave it to you to find three condors, two squirrels, and a pair of outhouses pictured in this post.