Rocks



There are various ways to see the vistas of the Grand Canyon. You can hike the endless trails and camp along the way. You can ride mules down to the Canyon bottom. And back up again. You can climb aboard a helicopter and swoop over the highs and lows.

Ma and Pa chose the free hop on-hop off shuttle buses! They trundle along and stop at all the finest viewing points. Not as daring as the helicopter, nor as smelly as the mules, but with cheery drivers and air conditioning, and showing up every 15 minutes, there is much to recommend them. Best bit? The seats at the front for Seniors, and Ma and Pa occupied them proudly.

Over four hours in increasing temperatures, they saw as much of the west of the South Rim as can be done by road. Each viewpoint more dramatic than the last. Take a look:








It’s a mile to the bottom of the Canyon, carved out by the Colorado River. And if you can see mountains across the top of the Canyon, they are 120 miles away. And many of the edges are exactly that: edges to mile-long drops and no fences. Very very scary and Ma’s absolute nightmare!

It impressed everyone, from all corners of the world. Oh, except cool teenage boys. We overheard a pair of dudes slouching along. Dude 1: ‘More of the same?’ Dude 2: ‘Yeah. Rocks.’ Hope they come back one day and look at it all again.

As the heat increased, Ma and Pa retreated to their nice cool hotel. Not cool in a dude sense, just air conditioned. Then returned later in the day to watch the sunset over the Canyon and the light change over the endless rocks. Still Grand. Very Grand.






Eastern section of the South Rim tomorrow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Good morning America

Image
A return route is just the same, only backwards, right? Noooo. Admittedly there are some similarities on the way back to Durango (long straight roads, strange rock formations, yada yada yada). But here’s the thing. If you’re ever given the chance to visit one more national park in the USA, take it. Chances are you’ll see something new and ridiculously wonderful. And so it was that Ma and Pa took a right turn off the road and into Mesa Verde national park. Mesa Verde, Green Table. The name given to a huge flat-topped rock formation that for thousands of years until 750AD was home to puebloan peoples who built their homes under the rocky overhangs. You think Ma and Pa are making this up? How did they do it? No idea. Why did they leave? No idea, either. But it seems their descendants moved to pueblos in New Mexico and lived in exactly the same way for centuries so much sense has been made of the archaeological finds at Mesa Verde. See? Always take that detour. And so back...
Read more

Happy 4th!

Image
This was quite a day, as Ma and Pa celebrated 4th of July with their US chums. First of all came a delicious and traditional home-cooked breakfast of red, white and blue pancakes with bacon and watermelon and strawberries. And maple syrup. Yummm-my. Then it was off to the Greeley Stampede. It’s famous, but not an actual stampede of things, more a several day event of cowboy/girl sports. Like rodeo, or lassoing animals, or - like today - bull fighting! Happily not Spanish style where the poor bull ends up dead. But still, one bloke in a small arena with a very angry bull and he has to run about and not get caught, for one minute. If he does get caught and whacked, other cowboys jump in to distract the bull. Quite mad! And finally it was off to a neighbourhood party where Ma and Pa met more very welcoming people and enjoyed traditional fare of pulled pork, salads, spicy beans. And garden games! Ma and Pa have learned a new one called Cornhole which definitely will be add...
Read more

The Bells, The Bells

Image
Nearly at the end of Ma and Pa’s big week away. Today’s plan was to drive north to Glenwood Springs, taking the scenic route past the Maroon Bells. Oh, sorry, not familiar with the Maroon Bells? They are only the poster mountains for Colorado, towering at over 14000 feet and starring in almost every tourism advert for the state. First the old offline satnav had to be coached into action, moody little **. Turns out it has to be set up online or it won’t play. What part of offline does it not understand? (all of it, all of it). Blog readers may remember the roads through the French farms of 2018? Colorado’s equivalent today was a turn off a perfectly good road and on to a worryingly long sequence of roads called G Road, H Road, I Road, J Road, K Road, 2000 Road, 2050 Road, 2075 Road...... and finally a stretch of road that wasn’t a road at all, just gravel on dirt. But, miraculously it did join the Maroon Bells road! Hurrah, went Ma and Pa. Huge Phew, they also said. But where wer...
Read more