The Awesome Grand Canyon

May 6, Day 6 found us up bright and early. If you don't know, Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time (unless you are on an Indian Reservation) so sunrise is at 5:30.  But that is ok as we are headed to the south rim of the Grand Canyon!  We did enjoy our short stay at Dead Horse Ranch State Park which isn't too far from Sedona.  The drive from Sedona to Flagstaff was beautiful!  Slow and winding in some spots.  And even snow still on the mountain tops.

We entered the Grand Canyon National Park through the Desert View entrance on the east side.  The Desert View Watchtower was open. We don't remember on previous trips being allowed inside here.  Really interesting!  However, I got a little claustrophobic on the stairs climbing up - they were narrow and winding and so many people. 

One of the walls inside the watch tower.

The Watch Tower, designed by Mary Colter. Amazing.

OK, so you know the Grand Canyon is just an amazing place!  You have a hard time taking a bad picture here.  So just be forewarned that this post has a lot of beautiful pictures!  Here is a canyon picture from Desert View.

Easy to spot the Colorado River!

This elk had the traffic stopped.  He was pretty though.

We got settled into Trailer Village.  It was a laundry and clean house afternoon.  But then the best part of the day came along.  Watching the sunset at Mather Point. It was absolutely breathtaking!

We weren't the only ones wanting to capture pictures of the sunset!

Such beautiful colors!

The next day we were up at 4:45 a.m. to go watch the sun rise over the canyon.  It was a pretty chilly 41 degree morning.  Armed with cameras and coffee, we went back to Mather Point. The sun rose at 5:33 and again, it didn't disappoint us.

After cooking a big breakfast in the 40 degree weather, we caught the "red" shuttle bus that took us out to Hermit's Rest.   We made several stops along the way for more beautiful shots of the Grand Canyon.

The railroad depot

Just don't step backwards!

There's an old mine down there.

They call it the shipwreck

Greg and Ron

The end of the road.

Ron getting comfortable inside of Hermit's Rest.

I don't care how many times we have been here, this place is still just amazing.  We are still heading west with a stop in Las Vegas and then into California where we will be visiting quite a few national parks.