You may have a heard of a place called The Grand Canyon. It tends to make an appearance on Bucket Lists and must see lists. Of all the places we have travelled to date The Grand Canyon (and 1 other location) are true must sees, my words and pictures will NEVER do it justice. The Grand Canyon really is a place you need to see to believe.
We tagged The Grand Canyon onto a Vegas trip. I say this like the Canyon wasn't the absolute highlight of the trip. We flew into Vegas, on our usual red eye flight. This fight is also the cheapest airline we can find, AKA Spirit. So you know we were comfy and well rested, when we landed and went to the basement of the airport to pick up our rental car.
There was some confusion regarding our car. We spent some time negotiating for a basic car, they really wanted to upsell us to a convertible, afterall it is Vegas! But they were buttering up the wrong person, me, when they should have been schmoozing Jeff. Oh well their mistake. We left with our basic level car and no convertible, or extra fees 😉.
We took off on the open road for our 4 hour drive. Our goal was to see the sunrise at the Grand Canyon. Jeff and I took turns driving while the other one tried to sleep. This was challenging of course, driving through a desert in the middle of the pitch black night exciting stuff y'all!
Let me take a side bar to explain why we,
A) didn't take a tour
B) didn't go to a closer lookout point
A) We are not really tour people. It is not that we are snobby and think we can plan a better visit and prefer our own company....
Or is it?
Only sort of. We like to move at our own pace. We like to see things without HUGE crowds. We do find our experience is better when we plan our own trip/tour (most of the time). I can assure you we are not snobby though.
B) There are look out points for the Grand Canyon that are closer to the Vegas Strip than a 4+ hour drive. However, they are expensive and super crowded. We are talking about a natural landmark that spans 445.8Km. I mean do you really have to see it with hundreds of people on a glass floor lookout, that you paid $60ish for, and have a time limit? Ummm, of course not! Of course this is a wonderful option. But if you put in a little bit of effort and build it into your trip you can see the wondrous beauty of this landmark for free, with no time limit, but still some crowds.
We pulled into the park around 5am. We tried to sleep while we waited for sunrise, but let me tell you, it is cold in the desert at night. Like freezing cold. We were there in May, but it could have been an Ontario February. We walked over to the rim in the freezing cold, waited and watched. *This is the part that I will never be able to do justice for. Go see this yourself!* As the sun came up over the rim, there are no words. The sleepless night was beyond worth it. We watched this magic happen with about 12 other people, an unforgettable moment to ourselves.
Once the sun was up we headed down the trail. There are no guard rails on most of the rim. Which for me, made it feel more real. The Grand Canyon is so amazing it almost doesn't look real. We walked for a few hours along the rim away from the car. Eventually we reached a little hotel/restaurant. It was not overly busy, but was built right on the edge of the rim. So we enjoyed some coffee and breakfast feeling like we were floating over the edge. On our walk back we took some time to stop and sit. Reflect. Meditate. Places like this will do that, make you question your very own existence and what you are even doing with your life. We soaked it all in. We spent several hours there and left just as the tour busses were pulling into the parking lot.
We had an entire days worth of site seeing, a lifetime maybe, in just the morning hours. Sunrise to noon. It felt like we were alone on some vast strange planet. I now understand why The Grand Canyon makes it onto everyone's bucket list. I get why people say it is a must see. I did not know how important and special the Grand Canyon was until I saw it for myself. Like I said before, to date there are only 2 places we have travelled, in the United States, that I say are must see, bucket list items. The Grand Canyon is worth it, no matter where you see it. Just go see it.
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