Gail and Kevin go the Grand Canyon

It's time for Part 4 of the Gail and Kevin Grand Adventure in Las Vegas!

We wake up early (for us) Thursday morning. Luckily, my stomach is no longer attempting to crawl out of my body. In my last update, I mentioned how nice the bed was in the Quality Inn. What I did not mention was the toilet. Which included this fairly odd warning:



Notice the fairly large red sticker, saying "Reclaimed Water. Do Not Drink."? Kevin insisted that I take a picture of it. We were a bit puzzled about why it was needed - who would drink water out of the toilet normally? Dogs? But Dogs Can't Read! Plus, reclaimed water? Whatever do they mean?

Luckily, the first bathrooms tall I encountered at the Grand Canyon cleared up the issue nicely.



The Grand Canyon is located in a desert. (Duh.) Even worse, the south rim doesn't have a water source of its own, so all the water is piped over from the north rim via rickety pipe. Presumably the town of Tusayan doesn't rely on the pipe to get water, but its still scarce.

Okay, the toilet mystery cleared up, we moved on to the important part of the trip. Which was the Grand Canyon. I reviewed the safety rules first:



Yes, that’s right, I ordered Kevin to under no circumstances to fall off the side of the Grand Canyon. It turns out a surprising number of folks every year do tumble to their deaths right along the rim trail, which we discovered after reading Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, which we bought at one of the gift shops. Falling to your death sounds really dumb until you are actually there. I am deathly afraid of heights. I managed to have a panic attack on the sky deck of the Sears Tower. But, the Grand Canyon is so vast that you can’t even conceive of the distances and the reality of it, and the scenery is engrossing. I didn't have a problem at all getting pretty close to the edge.

The scenery, as I mentioned, was unbelievable. I don’t think I took any pictures that really caught the enormity of it. I did put up the best ones in my gallery, but I’ll stick some below too. :)

First, we have the all important pictures of Gail and Kevin at the Grand Canyon.

My leather coat is maybe too big on me, now that I see it in this picture.



I love this picture of Kevin.



We took a 2 mile hike along the rim trail. We got to see a squirrel, which was not the least bit afraid of heights.



There are some closer pictures in the gallery.

It was a pretty misty day, but we did get some nice vivid colors. You can tell I took this picture because I didn't keep the horizon level.



I love this picture - I think its a mesquite tree, barely hanging onto the edge.



It’s hard to think of the Grand Canyon constantly changing, but it really is a work in progress. Here’s a picture of a massive piece of rock that looks like it could break off at any moment.



After our hike, we grabbed a shuttle bus to the main village, and had lunch at the El Tovar Hotel. I totally want to go back and stay there. Now that I think about it, the inside of the El Tovar Hotel really reminds me of the Katherine Legge Memorial Lodge, where I’ll be getting married.

(Picture stolen from a random website, I didn't take it.)



Maybe that’s why I felt so much at home there. Lunch was truly excellent, and they kept our water goblets full. I had a navajo taco, and Kevin had beef stroganoff.

We had a lot of fun in the gift shops, and took the shuttle bus back to where we had parked the car. Then, we drove back to Las Vegas.

We really only had time to spend half a day at the Grand Canyon - if we do the tripa gain, I’d want to allow at least a full day there - they have a number of very interesting programs, and maybe we’d even do another baby hike. Or walk. :) I was surprised at how much I loved the Grand Canyon - it just felt like a really good place to be.