Merikay's Dream

Our first day in the Grand Canyon (Tuesday night), our Verizon internet service on our smartphone hotspot delivered its last email at 2:25 PM and then went away until some time in the early AM of Wednesday 24th.  Our daughter managed to get a phone call through about 5 PM, which made us wonder why the internet service remained inoperable, but we're happy to have it back.  There would have been no way to communicate the fun we're having to you out there in the rest of the country!

As we said in our previous mini-post, AZ 64 north to the south rim was a good drive.  We pulled into GCNP about one, got hooked up and went for a walk eastward from Mather Point along the south rim.

 
The weather was excellent, sunny but cool. We seemed to have come at just the right time. The park is not crowded, and there are very few families with children. (Not that we dislike children mind you, but crowds in general are dislikeable.)

Anyone willing to study a map of the GC would have known its chief feature in advance: it has tributary canyons in all directions, just like a lake that is formed by damming a river! This shouldn't be surprising, since such a lake is simply a highland river system filled with water, like Lake Powell above the GC and Lake Mead below it.  But when you're walking a rim trail you get very aware of the many side canyons!

Today (Wednesday) we walked west from Mather point along the south rim along the paved trail.

The building at the top of the next picture is the 108-year-old El Tovar hotel. There is more vegetation below it than almost anywhere else. Years of water disposal?

We didn't make it all the way to the end of the rim trail.  That will be for tomorrow.  

We are in awe of the beauty. 

Walking the Rim...