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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Day 7 Grand Canyon Visit

So Thursday morning we got up early and headed to Arizona.  We arrived in Tusayan, AZ, the gateway to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The first place we visited was the National Geographic Visitor Centre and watched the IMAX Movie Hidden Secrets of the Grand Canyon. After the movie we decided to book a hotel room before we headed to the canyon, good thing we did because even though the parking lot was empty, there were only 10 rooms left and when we did finally get back it looked like the entire town was sold out.

So room booked and we head up to the canyon, we parked and walked out to Mather Point. It is unbelievable, it is very hard to describe in words and even the pictures don’t do it justice. When you see the Colorado river way down at the bottom it is hard to  imagine that little river carved out this immense canyon.



We took so many pictures trying to stop at all the vista points.  There were a lot of people there but not so many that you couldn’t find a parking spot along the way. 



They have shuttle buses that go all along the rim and I think in the summer time, they must close the road off to traffic and you can only use the busses, otherwise it would be bumper to bumper traffic everywhere. We headed all the way to the end of the rim so that we could see the sunset, which is supposed to be amazing, unfortunately it was a little cloudy and we didn’t get much of a sunset.


We also visited a place called Hermit’s Rest; this was a rest area at a trail that led down to the Colorado River. It was name for a Canadian Prospector Louis Boucher staked claims below present-day Hermits Rest. With help, Boucher carved the aforementioned trail into the canyon, for years lived alone at nearby Dripping Springs














After the failed sunset we headed back into Tusayan for dinner. We ate at the Big E steakhouse. Both of us tried the prime rib which for the price we paid it really wasn’t as flavourful as other prime ribs we have had. It was okay but not the best.


We enjoyed a good night’s sleep at the Holiday Inn Express; they have really nice beds, pillow toppers and all.

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