Death Rock

I've been told a lot about the Grand Canyon by everyone who has been there. I've been told the colours are unreal, it's vast, it's very dark at night - all kinds of things. One thing that everyone agrees on is that you have to see it to believe it; no pictures do it justice.

All of these things are true.

I'll do my best with words but I will fail. There really aren't any words.

The drive from Laughlin is long enough. There's a time change between Nevada and Arizona which makes it seem longer.  Thanks, once again, to Sanford Flemming.

Our guide hands us paper bags and markers, asking us to draw a quick "selfie" on them in the van before we get to the canyon. Okay, crazy man. We do it and once in the parking lot, we are told to put the bags over our head. Alright....

I'm glad we did. Once we got to the rim, he told us to take the bags off.
It was.....spectacular.

Had we been catching glimpses of it as we were walking up, it still would have been spectacular but less so than seeing it all at once for the first time.

James is amazed too.

As we trekked down, three of us powered down into the canyon. Others wanted to take more pictures, we didn't want to waste daylight. We also knew the trek back up would suck. We were about a third of the way in on our path when out of nowhere, a rock fell down and nearly took Jason out. It was about the size of a hand! He was half a step ahead of it or he would have been taken out.

We made our way to a very aptly named point:

We have gained a LOT of altitude today and in addition to powering down the canyon, my head is starting to hurt.

Contemplating the meaning of life after a brush with death.

Going back up was killer. I'm really glad we took our time. Holy crap. No rocks tried to kill us this time, however.  We did come across an iconic Grand Canyon scene:

Mules!

I don't know how to describe the Grand Canyon. It looks fake. It doesn't look real. It looks as though you can take a couple of steps and go through a painting, a Photoshop. It is vast and unreal. I'm not at all good enough with words to be able to describe it and pictures cannot do it justice. You must see this.

I got my UNESCO!

We moved further down to watch the sun set. It was cloudy so the sky wasn't spectacular, but the view was.

Spectacular.

I heeded Mom's warning and bought a headlamp. It does indeed get really dark, really fast. This dollar store head lamp, however, has three settings - high, low, and disco. It is very bright! The unfortunate part is that the disco setting is the one right before you turn it off.

We went back for a bit the next day as well.

Unbelieveable.

On the way out of town, we stopped at a mediocre but cute place on Route 66.

This street sign is 15 feet up; apparently it is the most stolen sign in the USA.

Next up: gonna set my soul on fire.