Russ and Rob's Travels: Grand Canyon

Geoff and Kienny have a 6 seater Toyota land Cruiser Troop carrier known as “TROOPY” or SHE (reliable and dependable ) so we are able to park our RV and all load into SHE to experience the places we would not be able to in our RV. Sedona is one of those places that you could stay a while but during our short stay we walked light horse walking trail at Red Rock Canyon, went to the church of the holy cross with it’s structure set within the rock of the canyon and had a look around. Our visit would not have been complete without a walk through a gallery and our choice was Patio del Norte.

From there we then made our way to the Grand Canyon National Park. Upon entering the canyon we purchased an annual parks pass and made our way to the south rim of the canyon. We stopped over at canyon village and visitors centre for information. As all the camping grounds were full we camped overnight in the car park. This gave us a chance to walk the short 500 metres from our camp to the canyon rim to view the sunset .

The following morning we walked the south rim continuously in awe of this amazing natural wonder. As Russ says, one mighty BIG hole in the ground. Yep! 10 miles wide, 1 mile deep and for 277 miles the Colorado river runs along its floor. A friendly squirrel sunbaking on the edge of a rock over the canyon came up to greet us. We were returned to our vehicles by a free shuttle bus and from there we made our way out of the National Park back to Tusayan where we viewed the Grand Canyon movie at the Imax theatre. Our grand canyon experience continued for a few more hours as we pulled into roadside lookouts or as they are called in America overlooks with the best being desert view where a watch tower that was built in 1932 stands. Climbing the stairs to the top of the tower gave us a 360 degree view across the canyon and desert. The tower is also an information and souvenir booth and lining it’s walls are hand painted art of all kinds.

Our journey continued away from the canyon passing alongside the painted desert, across the little Colorado river where the original bridge remains. It was then northward for a short distance before we pulled up for camp in the Hopi Indian reservation at the veterans Memorial Park at Elephant Rock. The night was pleasant so we were able to enjoy our dinner outdoors watching the sunset close off for us what was another very enjoyable day.