Visiting the Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon Village, Arizona

    

We left Page at around 7am to be sure that we would be at the Grand Canyon early enough. The drive there takes you past some beautifuly landscapes. There are plains, the desert, some heavily eroded sandy area (kind of like the Bad Lands), and of course canyons.

Eventually, you'll hit the Grand Canyon after a mere 1 1/2 hour drive. I was a bit surprised that here again there was a lot of wind and of course it was cold, because it's located far above sea level, but this was really cold.

We parked the car and chose to use public transortation around the canyon. Once we got into the bus, I knew it was a bad idea. It's really awesome if you are staying for one week, but if you only have a day and need to be flexible, it's plain stupid.

Anyhow, we ended up doing what we had planned on doing, walking down the Bright Angel Trail, all the way to Indian Gardens and to the Plateau Point.

We had to hurry up because we only startedour hike around 1pm and it's a 20Km walk to do this, so you have no time to waste at all. Anyhow, it turned out to be fantastic, seeing the Grand Canyon from above is one thing, but walking down is really amazing. It's so deep and it's a place where you really feel tiny. We worked our way back up and it was tiring. We even took turns with the backpack, which was filled with water, so that we would be safe. We had also brought enough food in order to be sure that we would have enough carbs to do the hike.

After finally having reached the top, we were exhausted and headed for our car. It took about 2 hours, because of the bus system and all. And it was cold again, imagine that down in the Canyon we were struggling with the heat (around 95 degrees), while up on top it was probably around 40 and windy as hell.

After getting back into the car, we decided that we' drive all the way back to LA, but that would not work. We completely underestimated the distance and around 20 Miles South of the Grand Canyon it suddenly started to snow. What a mess, no way we would reach LA on time leaving the Grand Canyon only around 8pm.

We were hungry and tired when we finally hit the Free way near Flagstaff and then I saw the sign "Los Angeles 450 Miles", OUUUCHH! We got on the Freeway nevertheless and at least wanted to cover as many Miles as possible. And then there was another surpise - 1000s of Semi trucks heading towards LA. What was that??? I had never seen anyhing like it, there was not a single regular car, only these huge trucks and thousands of them, leaving about 20 feet distance in between them, and of course us :) Scary, scary, scary, I tell you this worked better than 10 cups of coffee and I was wide awake again, for at least 1 hour.

Axel took over, and he drove another 30 Miles when we finally found some shady truck stop to have a long deserved meal. We all felt more relaxed after this one and decided to stop at the next Motel whenever Axel was getting tired. We found a Motel 6 a couple of Miles down the road and finally did what we should have done hours ago, before heading back home.

USA 2010 - overview

1. May 12, 2010 Trip to Los Angeles (Los Angeles)
2. May 13, 2010 Getting around in Los Angeles (Los Angeles)  ( 4)
3. May 14, 2010 Best things to see in Los Angeles (Los Angeles)  ( 15)
4. May 15, 2010 What to see in Los Angeles (Los Angeles)  ( 26)
5. May 17, 2010 Visiting Las Vegas (Las Vegas)  ( 94)
6. May 21, 2010 Our Bryce Canyon trip (Bryce Canyon)  ( 96)
7. May 21, 2010 Visiting the Coral Pink and Red Sand Dunes (Kanab)  ( 16)
8. May 22, 2010 Trip to the Antelope Canyon (Page)  ( 127)
9. May 22, 2010 Our Lake Powell trip (Page)  ( 19)
10. May 23, 2010 Visiting the Grand Canyon (Grand Canyon Village)  ( 65)
11. May 24, 2010 Shopping in Barstow (Barstow)
12. May 25, 2010 Short visit in San Francisco (San Francisco)
13. May 27, 2010 What to do in San Francisco (San Francisco)
14. May 27, 2010 Roadtrip on Pacific Number 1 (Pismo Beach)

Start from beginning | 1 - 14          Journal overview