The first time, we were on our way to Seattle and had stopped in Tuscon for 4 days to visit my travel companions’ friends. We left Tuscon later in the day and got up to Flagstaff around 9pm on New Year’s Eve and we could have stayed overnight and gone the next day, or we could keep driving and spend the night somewhere in Utah. Since I was the only one who hadn’t seen it, the choice was given to me and honestly? I was just ready to get to my new home.
The second time, we (a different “we”) were heading to Florida from Seattle. We had already been to Victoria, B.C., Portland, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. We made it to Flagstaff and planned to spend the night and go the next day. When we woke up the next morning there was something strange outside: six inches of snow covered anything that stood still. Both of us had learned to drive in Florida and lacked the knowledge of how to handle a vehicle in the snow. After talking to some of the locals about the roads out there, we decided the safest thing to do was to not risk the drive. We headed straight to Phoenix instead and spent 5 days there with family (theirs, not mine).
When I got the official go-ahead for my Tempe work trip, I immediately google-mapped how long it would take to drive up there: 10 hours. What? It was only 5 hours to get to Vegas… I didn’t understand. I decided to do more research on wikipedia and it turns out that 10 hour drive? That was to the north rim – the south rim gets more visitors and it was only 4 hours (give or take). That was do-able!
But then there were fees to get in, and fees for tours, and… wait… what’s this? You can take a day tour from Phoenix? Someone else to do all the driving AND you get to learn something?
This, my friends, is how you do the Grand Canyon for the first time.
I took a million photos, I walked a generous portion of the Trail of Time (from Yavapai point to El Tovar), and… geeze. There just are no decent words to say how incredible it was. I started to feel bad that I didn’t get to experience this before, when I was with other travelers… but, to be honest, I think it was a good thing for me to have walked the bit of the South Rim by myself. It was peaceful and serene.
And I finally got to go.
