Week 22: The Road to the Grand Canyon

It is almost summertime.  For most families, summer usually means ROAD TRIP!  It’s time to pack the kids in the car, perhaps go somewhere new, and have an adventure.

One of the many road trips that I have enjoyed was to the Grand Canyon. It was my first and only time there. Admittedly, this trip was eons ago. So this T-shirt is really old, and I do not remember a lot of the details. My friends and I did not take a hike down to the canyon floor because a good number of us are afraid of height and narrow trails – author included.

We just took a lot of hikes and drives along the rim, enjoyed the out-of-this-world views (reminds me of Mars) and magnificent sunsets whose colors are featured in this t-shirt.  The longer one looks at the Canyon, the more one can start to see the vastness of the beautiful sedimentary layers of rock, and in a very real sense, begin to grasp the immensity of time past; each deposited layer of stone, from the limestone to the sandstone to the shale, represents millions of years of time that have come and gone. Very cool indeed!

A special treat was that we stayed in the park at the Bright Angel Lodge. It was awesome waking up to a truly grand view each and every morning.

Best way to get there from where we live (in the San Francisco Bay Area) is to FLY to Las Vegas and then drive. Although we somewhat cheated since it is only a part-road trip, I think this still counts. Otherwise, it would probably be a twelve-hour drive, without stops. Getting there from Las Vegas makes it a much more manageable four-hour drive. Plus you get to stay in Vegas for a day or two, and you get to see (maybe even tour the inside of) the Hoover Dam.

Writing this post makes me want to visit again. My husband and I have been planning on a 10-day car tour of Arizona and New Mexico (where he has spent a fair amount of time enjoying); for sure the Grand Canyon will be one of the stops of that vacation road trip.

P.S. For a really neat, philosophical read about the first trip on foot through The Grand Canyon, check out Colin Fletcher’s ‘The Man Who Walked Through Time.’

Blogger’s Note: Just a reminder, this is the week of The Kidney Walk in San Francisco. If you have a chance, walk for a cause or support a walker participating in the event. Here's my post about the Kidney Walk.