A Grand Adventure - A Guest Blog by Kim

Shawn and Tammy and the boys are currently overrun with guests. After Sandy and Arne left them in Vegas, Annette, Cassandra and I moved in and then we all met up with Mom and Dad in Bryce Canyon and have been travelling around together since then. Having seen beautiful sites in Bryce and Sedona, we moved on to a few days in the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon is almost too big to take in. At every turn, you see another spectacular view and don’t quite know where to look first. We thoroughly exhausted everyone with hiking and biking. We first took in the main Rim walkway and a program with the fabulous Nicole, who I think we all agreed was one of the best park rangers we’ve met and all the teachers (as well as non-teachers) agreed that she was a first rate educator who held all of our attention for more than an hour, talking about the history, geology and the wildlife of the Grand. We liked her so much that we followed her to the graveyard that night in the spooky full moon to hear about some of the interesting characters buried there and of course, some ghost stories.

Shawn, Tammy and myself took the kids on a bike ride to see another amazing view of the Canyon. We ended up doing first aid on Braedon to remove an inch long splinter from his leg (nails are a very good tool). We then ended up accidentally splitting up into the girls and the guys and both groups got totally lost trying to get back to the campground. We eventually made it back with very weary legs and a strong dislike of Grand Canyon maps.

Our next adventure was a hike down into the Canyon on Kaibab trail. We opted for the short version that only took us about 1 ½ miles into the Canyon. It was more than enough by the time we dragged ourselves up the top 4 hours later. The trip to go down to the bottom is a 7 or 8 hour hike and understandably, they don’t recommend that you go down and back in 1 day. We had to hold onto Cassandra at times because the wind was so strong. Although it had really nice views and was very beautiful, you could get much closer to everything in Bryce Canyon which we liked better.

Our final stop on the way out of the Canyon was the Watchtower, a native inspired building built in the 20’s by a female architect, Mary Colter. It had spectacular views and the interior was decorated with native art. The flute player held the children mesmerized and inspired Braedon to practice very hard with his new birthday flute.

Watching the scenery unfold around this country has been wonderful. The many colours, shapes and sizes of rocks has been unbelievable. Looking forward to what’s around the next bend.

Kim