Fernanda & Karl - Road Trip, Day 14 -- Website by Now Interactive Solutions

Photos

Newest Set:

Babs and Pia
10/18/24

Wiebke's visit
09/27/24

Brazil 2024 - Fernanda
09/06/24

Miska 2024 - June
06/01/24

Miska 2024 - May
05/01/24

Miska 2024 - April
04/01/24

Miska 2024 - March
03/01/24

Miska 2024 - February
02/01/24

Miska 2024 - January
01/01/24

Miska - December
12/01/23

Miska - November
11/01/23

Miska - October
10/01/23

Miska 2023 - September
09/01/23

Miska 2023 - August
08/09/23

India and Taj Mahal 2023
03/18/23

Germany (and Iceland) 2022
12/01/22

Brasil 2022 - after BH
10/18/22

Brazil 2022
10/07/22

Bathroom in the Annex
11/13/20

2020 Summer and Fall and Winter in the Pandemic
08/23/20

Long Island 2020
07/24/20

Balcony Garden
05/05/20

Baltimore 2020
02/09/20

Train show at the NY Botanical Gardens
12/07/19

Mohonk - Winter Wonderland
12/04/19

Oktoberfest 2019
10/06/19

Cool pictures of our apartment
10/06/19

Burle Max at NY Botanical Gardens
09/14/19

Papai In Memoriam
08/04/19

Aussie Parents' Visit
05/15/19

[...]
(Show all)

Friday, August 31, 2007

Road Trip, Day 14

Ledge
(Click to view)

Grand Canyon

Day 14 -- half-way through! And we haven't even hit the Pacific yet.

Today was spent seeing the sites of the south rim of the Grand Canyon. In the morning we went to the western part only accessible by shuttle bus, all the way to Hermit's Rest; then in the afternoon we went to the eastern part, all the way to Desert View, the part we drove through last night in the dark. (We found out that the fires we saw are part of a controlled burn, managing the forest with natural fire.)

What can I say? Just when you think you've seen everything, nothing could possibly top the last thing you saw, the West just goes and ups the ante. You think you've seen canyons and sculpted buttes and rock formations? Ha! Here's a canyon on top of a canyon on top of a canyon, it's a mile deep, and miles wide, and goes on forever!

The park itself, while nice and all that, sure suffers from poor planning and/or marking -- the maps suck, they aren't to scale, don't show the "secret" roads for the residents (and there is quite a huge residential setup for all the workers and stuff), and the signs contradict each other, aren't very helpful, or are just plain wrong. The road to the west that is shuttle bus only: we saw at least two signs claiming it is open to all vehicles. Last night finding our lodge was a nightmare. And as for poor planning: there is an area called Mather Point that has an associated visitor's center and book store with it. The visitor's center is not accessible by car, you have to take a shuttle bus or walk. Meanwhile, Mather Point itself is very popular and has way too many cars to be accommodated by the smallish parking lot there -- cars are parked off the side of the road and illegally and all. Why not put a larger parking lot by the visitor's center, and have people take a shuttle bus from there to Mather point? I mean, OK, the park is over a hundred years old, you inherit some of this stuff, but man! Just get used to the fact that nothing makes sense, the signs are confusing, and the maps suck, and you'll do fine.

We went back to our room to pack a picnic, and it took three tries, circling around, before we could find the picnic area indicated on the map. And of course the picnic area didn't have anything useful like a spigot for us to rinse plates with... We also did a little war-driving, trying to find an open wifi. I had reports that there was supposed to be a recreation center on Albright Ave. that had wifi, but nothing; we couldn't even find any recreation center although we drove up and down Albright (not that that was easy to find, given the crappy maps). In the evening we got a tip from someone else that there definitely was an open wifi by the park headquarters building, but when we tried there was nothing (maybe it shuts down after business hours). So no luck on that front. This stuff will all have to be posted later.

We watched the sunset over the canyon. We also did laundry tonight (such excitement!), and had dinner at the nearby cafeteria to the laundromat. Now we have to hang out the still not quite dry clothes all over the room and hope they dry tonight.

We are pretty exhausted, and still have almost no idea where we are going tomorrow. Oh well; for tonight we have a nice room. We'll figure tomorrow out.

(view pictures)

View Calendar

Previous Entries

:-(
06/19/21

Açores
08/29/18

Our New Bathroom Saga
11/17/16

Europe 2015
03/16/15

The Berkshires
10/18/14

Road Trip South
03/23/13

Greece!
07/26/12

Our Trip to Ireland
08/09/09

Google Map of our Trip
09/17/07