Grand Canyon to Petrified Forest National Parks

Like I said in my previous post, we had a good time while we were at the Grand Canyon.  It was cold, and extremely busy (apparently Christmas/New Years is in the top 2 or 3 busiest weeks of the year!), but fun.  While Catherine and the kids were waiting for me to get all set up for a family photo, they had fun with an iPhone selfie.

Which of course, the kids and I had fun with selfies, too.

I got up early on our last morning to catch a cold (7 F - yes, that's seven) and windy sunrise.  I lucked out with a few low clouds to catch the early morning color on the horizon.  I didn't stay too long since I knew we had to get on the road.

From the Grand Canyon, we drove to Albuquerque, passing through Petrified Forest National Park on our way past.  The kids LOVED Petrified Forest!  The petrified trees were quite beautiful.

And the kids had a great time completing their Junior Ranger badge requirements.  There were dinosaur fossils to analyze, petrified trees to discover, and ancient petroglyphs to explore.  Here they are, getting sworn in by a Park Ranger.

 Have a great day!

Cheers,

Marc

Grand Canyon National Park

From Antelope Canyon I drove a long 3+ hours the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  Compared to the crowds at Zion, Antelope, and the South Rim, the North Rim was a slice of heaven!

I got there with plenty of time to set up my camp and have a leisurely dinner before heading out to one of the lookout points.  Sunset kind of fizzled, but as always was still nice to watch - even more so to watch the light climb out of the Canyon.

I was on the North Rim for two nights and on the South Rim for two nights.  Every night I put myself in a position to catch a sunset and every morning got up pretty early to put myself in a position to watch the sunrise; an experience I highly recommend.  On the North Rim, it was usually just me and one or two other people.  On the South Rim, I had to get there very early or walk down the Rim Trail a ways to get some solitude.

Some of you may recognize my new Facebook photo (above).  I was in no real danger, and once I took my photo everyone else just had to do it, too!  I got here fairly early, which since I was just sitting around not rushing from place to place meant that people felt comfortable chatting me up.  I met three South Korean exchange students that were bicycling Route 66.  They had a great time laughing at my photo and then re-enacting it.  I don't mean to brag, but as a former Ranger I obviously am immune to fear, so this photo above will likely get me the Tony/Oscar/Emmy/Nobel . . . I expect a phone call any day now ;-)

The next day I was in for a real treat for my sunset photo attempt (below).  As I was standing around waiting for the light to get good, this rainstorm came out of literally nowhere (it was cloudless, blue skies for the hours preceding this).  Unfortunately I had to use my hat to protect my real camera, but pulled out my iPhone for this photo.  It isn't the best from a technical perspective, but that arc on the (double) rainbow was HUGE so I couldn't get the Canyon and the rainbow in one shot, so I opted for the rainbow.

There was a wildfire in the area, it was more of a threat to the North Rim, but nothing terribly close to where I was camped.

Have a great day everyone!

Marc