The Grand Canyon deserves something, well, grander for it’s name. Like magnificent, awesome, awe-inspiring, glorious… On second thought, I don’t think there is any word that can capture not only its size, but the beautiful colors hidden away in a billion nooks and crannies, valleys and walls, or the sudden steepness that catches your breath. Despite the recent rash of deaths from falls into the Grand Canyon, we did see several people climbing over the guard rails and walking onto high promontories inches away from a thousand foot fall. One of them had a small child and a woman with sandals never designed for climbing rocks. (They survived, but only after a few precarious stumbles. Don’t these people read the news?)

This is my third visit to the Grand Canyon, but in many ways my first. At the age of 12ish, I viewed the Grand Canyon through the haze of dramamine, and was only partially present. The second was about ten years ago when my sisters and I took a 5 hour trip from Las Vegas to stand by the edge of the canyon at the Grand Canyon Village for about an hour before returning. This time, Roger and I entered from the east and we stopped at many stops I’d never seen before, each with its own spectacular/awesome/magnificent view. We were sufficiently awed that when we did arrive at Grand Canyon Village and faced a very grand parking problem, we opted out and headed on down the road.

There are probably billions of various views of the GC, each unique and compelling. I’m sharing a few of my own, but I highly recommend some of the commercial videos you can find on YouTube that much more effectively show the incredible size, the breadth, depth and phenomenal vistas it offers.