Grand Canyon (Wednesday, April 24)

Odyssey Unlimited description of today's activities: 

It’s a day to remember as we visit one of the country’s most famous natural landmarks: the Grand Canyon. Considered a wonder of the natural world, this UNESCO site stretches nearly 300 miles through and 10 miles across the Arizona desert. We see truly awe-inspiring vistas: banded layers of rock rise to plateaus and bluffs thousands of feet overhead, while the mighty Colorado River rushes one mile below. On our guided tour, we learn about the canyon’s geological history, and also about human history here: it dates back some 10,000 years and includes native peoples, explorers, miners, entrepreneurs, conservationists, and of course, visitors – who today number some six million annually. Then we have time for lunch on our own and an afternoon at leisure to appreciate the magnitude and beauty of the six-million-year-old canyon as we wish. After this bucket-list attraction, we return to our hotel; dinner tonight is on our own.

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There is so much I could write about the Grand Canyon, but it has all be written, so I shall limit this post to our experience there.  

We arrived at the Visitors Center on the south side of the canyon about 9:30. The weather was perfect.  

We walked along the rim from there to the Village, a distance of about 2.5 miles.

One of the highlights of the day was having two California Condors glide by directly over our heads.  At that moment I had a wide-angle lens on my camera, so rather than try to execute a quick lens change I decided to stay in the moment and just enjoy watching these magnificent birds which can have a wingspan of up to 9 1/2 feet.

Unfortunately, every year people fall over the edge of the canyon wall.  There was one such death yesterday.  Given the number of people who venture off the trails for a better look, have their picture taken or take a selfie, the question that came to mind was how many people barely escape falling.

This guy was hanging out at the Village.  There was not the usual container
for tips, but it was too coincidental to be anything but staged. 

At the Village, our group split up.  Some members remained in the park for the after-noon.  Others opted to go back to the hotel for a while, returning at 5:00 PM to see the sunset and have dinner. Pam and I were in this group.

Returning to the park to see the sunset and have dinner at the famous El Tovar Hotel, we saw some elk grazing.  When we got to the canyon rim, the sun being lower in the sky changed the lighting of the canyon.

The dinner in the main dining room was great.  Our table of 10 had fun.  One or another of us kept scooting outside to check on the sunset, returning with reports that enjoying our food and conversation was the better option.

The sunset was less than awesome which was not a surprise but nevertheless a bit of a disappointment. Rather than light up the canyon with a magical glow, the lower the sun got in the sky the longer the shadows in the canyon since light does not bend. It might be fascinating the see the canyon at night under the glow of a full moon, but we were near a new moon.

There was some confusion on whether the public transportation back to our hotel was still running (which we subsequently discovered it was), so not wanting an ugly surprise when we got the transfer station, our group had a van take us back.  The driver was pleasant, stopping along the way to point our mule deer and elk hunkered down for the night near the barns.