.... or to be more precise, these two days were literally the Tour de Canyons and Cliffs. That's it, all were about rocks...
Day 7: 1 April 2007
We left from Flagstaff in the morning and headed north 70 miles on road 180 to the main entrance of Grand Canyon in the south rim. It was a two-lane road passing the pine forest, with elks, deers and foxes were visible all the way to Grand Canyon. Traces of snow were still found in higher parts of the forest.
We started like most tourists, directly going to the south rim and walked or drove from point to point. This was my third trip here (and second for my wife and first for my kids) but we seemed couldn't get enough of it, although we still limited ourselves to 'beginner's trip'; we didn't go backpacking from point to point or took an arranged tour down to the Indian Reservation. Its beauty and grandness stood there having passed millions of years of changes in the earth. Really spectacular... it just shows that we as human beings are so tiny and vulnerable on the face of the earth and the universe, let alone before its Creator...
From the south rim we drove 40 miles to the east rim onto its main point, the Watch Tower or Desert View. The view was no less breathtaking, especially since it was almost sunset when we got there.
Just slightly before the sundown, we decided to go up north to the nearest small town to stay overnight. We took Hwy 64 and unexpectedly found scenic views of Little Colorado River Gorge almost all the way 60 miles on this road. Extremely beautiful... This is probably one of the littlest known of the most scenic byways. Only very few cars were ahead or behind us. However, some empty Indian markets were found on the roadside. They were probably open during the day.
Exit from Hwy 64 we entered Hwy 89 seventy miles on the way to small town of Page in north Arizona, close to the border with Utah. The views must have also been wonderful, but it was too dark for us to enjoy.
Total drive of the day: 230 miles.
Below is slideshow of the pics of Grand Canyon and vicinity. All I can say is that some or most of them probably don't do justice to the grandness and beauty of the Grand Canyon, especially as it was difficult to take nice pictures and produce natural colors with regular digicams (Canon S3 and Sony Cybershot) during high noon under the bright sun. Some of the better pictures were taken when it was almost sunset in East Rim of the Grand Canyon. Please also note that it looks like Slide.com reduces the quality of the uploaded pictures for its Flash slide (it's free service anyway... how far should I expect from them?)
Note 06/10/2007: I had to remove the slide show as it was a memory hog. To see it on the Slide server please check this out.
Day 8: 2 April 2007
Town of Page is small, quiet, not close to major cities, but very worthwhile to visit. It is home of the huge Glen Canyon Dam, one of the biggest dams in the US. As in its name, this dam is located in the Glen Canyon National Park, another marvelous canyon. Page is also close to Lake Powell, the second largest man-made lake in the US.
Finished with the visit to the Dam and appreciated the beauty of the canyon and Lake Powell (from a scenic point named Wahweab) we continued our drive on the highway 89 to the west. In a short drive we already entered the state of Utah ('the people of the mountains' in Ute Indian language). The scenic views of Grand Staircase-Escalante mountains were accompanying us until we turned to small byway road 9 which passed through Zion National Park, our next destination.
Frankly, I was actually almost tired of all these rocks though very much loved their natural beauty... Almost 2 full days of only rocks and I am not a geologist to begin with...:-) But then again I was becoming speechless as we got closer to Zion... The soaring towers, monoliths and cliffs ahead, left, right and behind us as we passed through it were so amazing... Unlike Grand Canyon, the beauty of which we appreciated from the top looking down the canyon, in Zion we were really 'inside' and became part of it. We were so miniscule being surrounded by the grandeur of the massive walls of millions of years of rock formation. The feeling was different... we were so powerless down there... It's a complete submission to the nature and the Almighty....
We took the shuttle tour to half of all the points as it was getting dark close to the sunset. Wild turkeys were seen along the road and on trees after dark. We then headed to the town of Hurricane, 30 miles from the park, and we stayed overnight there.
Total drive of the day: 140 miles.
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