We arrived at the visitor centre and made our plans for the day, which included walking from one end of the ‘Rim Trail’ to the other (about 3 miles) along the South Rim, and then succumbing to being an American tourist and hopping on the free shuttle bus back to our parked car.
From the car park we couldn’t see a thing - nothing remotely canyon-esque, but this quite excited Chris who was predicting a big wow moment every time we emerged from behind a building or a tree. Despite the noisy construction work taking place directly behind us, the first glimpse we got of the canyon was pretty spectacular, and we spent some time taking photos of the painted picture like view into the canyon. Surprised a little by how high up we were, we also noticed that all perspective on distance was lost, and had it not been for information gleened from wikipedia earlier on in the week, we wouldn’t have know if it was a mile or three hundred miles across to the other side of the canyon (it is in fact around 16km average).
After waiting almost in line to get the typical photo with the canyon behind you, we carried on with our walk. We were a little disappointed that there were so many people getting in our way. One has this image of visiting somewhere like this and being the only people there, but everyone seemed to have the same idea as us. Fortunately most of the tourists evidently preferred the shuttle bus in both directions and once we neared the middle section of our walk, the crowds thinned out significantly and we were able to saunter along in peace.
It was a pleasant walk but neither of us felt we were really seeing a different view, and not having the proper equipment to take a hike into the canyon itself, we then headed back. No skywalk glass floor for us today after we learnt it is over 250 miles away from where we were and closer to Las Vegas. Never mind, I’m still recovering from the Jurassic Park ride t Universal Studios anyway.
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