2:00 am - Los Angeles, California
The rental SUV was under the street lamp, gleaming in a yellow hue.
Done with stuffing the bags into the back, and excited about the travel ahead, five of us got into the vehicle.
Soon we were in the Los Angeles freeway, and we zoomed ahead.
5:58 am - Freeway, Somewhere between Cal and Nevada.
Wide awake at this time, not much traffic on the freeway. It was desert on both sides of the road.
The sun was about to peek over the eastern horizon. The sky turned into vibrant twilight colors.
From the car, we saw the sun rise in the desert, that a was pretty sight. "Hotel California" by eagles was playing in the car stereo system, which added to the mood of the scene!
7:05 am - Still in the same freeway
Hard luck - the SUV broke down! and had to wait for three long hours before the rental company replaced the vehicle with another. This put an end to or original idea of going to the Arizona Meteor crater. We decided to move on directly to the Grand Canyon.
2:13 pm - Near Kaibab National forest, Arizona
On our way to one of the natural wonders on earth!
Sometime back we were driving through the desert, suddenly there were trees all around us, wondered how the terrain could change so fast.
As we were about two miles from the grand canyon national park entrance we encountered a vehicle queue! all of them were trying to get into the park, and it took another one and half hours to finally go through the entrance gate!
4:45 pm, mountain time- The Natural Wonder
Grand canyon, the sight was truly exhilarating. It is impossible to capture its scale of vastness in any photograph, one has to be present there physically to comprehend it.
We were at the southern rim of the Grand Canyon, the width of the canyon, is about 16 miles on an average.
There are various vista points, were one can stand and relish the sights of the canyon. Those were very windy, and we could see not just the canyon, but mountains, some 50 miles away!
To reach these points, there are two ways, walk the whole way or take the free shuttle bus (kind of like a guided tour which stops at all points) The fun part is to walk the whole way through the canyon rim. Stopping now and then to capture some snaps.
There are also long hiking trails, were hikers and adventure seekers can walk. It usually takes more than a day to hike all the way to the bottom of the canyon (of course you need to walk back too!) I think people would carry all water and supplies with them and camp at the bottom of the canyon.
We saw the Colorado river going through, a long distance away.
Once we reached a considerable distance we turned back and caught a shuttle bus back to our starting point.
From there, we drove the car to another location, were we hoped to catch the glimpse of sunset. And the Canyon looks amazing when the sun in down towards the horizon, lit up in the yellow-orange light of the setting sun.
Slowly the sun set in horizon, and glow faded from the canyon, the temperature quickly dropped and it was cool and windy.
8:45 pm, mountain time:
We left the grand canyon, shortly after the sunset. Then we drove for a couple of hours and soon found a motel to stay for the night.
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