Grand Canyon South Rim

2/13/21

Mike and I

When life changes drastically what do you do? Make spontaneous plans. We now have our parents in assisted living and we are, for the first time free to be spontaneous.

After an exhausting couple of weeks I left the planning up to Mike. His plan, fly out Friday return Monday. We flew to Flagstaff, rented a car and drove to Tousayan. It was a super long flight. We arrived at the hotel and I went to bed and Mike went to the Grand Canyon for late night viewing. He said he has never seen so many stars in his life.

I woke up at 5 am and woke Mike up and we got ready, drove the 10 miles to the Grand Canyon. We went to Hopi Point for a most amazing sunrise! It was around 32 degrees and windy. It was soooo cold.

I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up so I could see what was below us. The show was the sun. As it hot higher the views and the sky would change colors. It was so amazing.

After the sunrise we drove to the north end of the south rim for our first overlook. Hermits Rest. It had a gift shop and restaurant. It was to early for it to be open. It was a huge area with a trail down to the river in it. It’s where the mules go down. I walked a little ways. It was on the sunny side so it wasn’t too cold. It was getting steeper so I turned around. Another time!

I must be honest I thought it was warm in the desert. Although 32 degrees here didn’t seam to be as cold as home, the wind speed changed everything. Not only did it make it super cold it made standing on the viewpoints a little scary.

We worked our way back along the South Rim.

Each overlook was unique and oh so incredible. We enjoyed each one. After a couple hours we went back to the hotel. We took a swim, ate and chilled a bit. We were going back for a sunset. We got up and got ready, got in the car, hit the convenience store and it started snowing. We decided to keep going and the snow got heavier. We were the only people going in. Everyone was leaving.

We went to Yavapi Point that would have a great sunset. It had awesome views. It was super windy, snowy and cold. We walked around then decided to drive to Yaki Point.

Yaki Point had less snow. As we waited for the sunset we saw a marriage proposal. They were filming it. We thought they were waiting for the sunset. Haha

Since there wasn’t a sunset we drove back to the hotel. We plan to drive to the south end of the South rim tomorro. This used to go in the Navaho reservation but because of covid it dead ends and their border is closed to the public. I’m disappointed because I would love to go in and see their culture and how they live, or patronize a business, buy some pottery or something.

When we woke up I checked my email to find our flight out was cancelled! We tried to make other plans but couldn’t find any good flights out of Flagstaff! We decided to drive to Pheonix, 3 hours away where we could get a 10 am flight Monday. That would mean we only had 1 day at the Grand Canyon. If it was warmer and less windy I would have loved to hike a trail but it wasn’t so hey we head towards warmer weather.

Next blog our second day in Sedona Arizona.