Grand Canyon

Kristen with a remote view of the Colorado River

Us on the edge of the abyss at Shoshone Point

I don’t really know how to put this.  The Grand Canyon was spectacular, yes.  The Grand Canyon was beautiful, yes.  And yes, the layer cake rock formations were fantastic to contemplate.  But given it’s notoriety and reputation, we were a little . . . underwhelmed?

I think we’d been traveling for too long at this point.  Too many spectacular scenes, too many sunsets on empty vista points with 100-mile views.  There was just something about this place, with its massive infrastructure and bus loads of tourists from around the world cramming every view point, that maybe felt a little forced to us.

But still, we enjoyed it, and we spent the day walking the rim and riding our bikes to various view points.  Our favorite was Shoshone Point, which requires a trip down 2 miles of unmarked dirt road, and was the only place where we could take pictures without being surrounded by a crowd.

The day before, we had gotten a call from Beth saying she couldn’t go on the hike to Supai.  She had hurt her knee mountain biking in Moab, and was on her way to Gallup to see a doctor.  We had contemplated doing the hike without her, but on the way home from the Grand Canyon, we decided we’d had enough.  No more nights in tents, out in the cold.  No more 10-hour drives.  Our lack of utter awe at the Grand Canyon was the last straw.  We’d compressed the schedule in the Southwest to its breaking point, and it was time to go home.