The Big K-Day 2

23 Sep 2010--We were hoping to do a little hiking down into the canyon today, but before we even left the RV I pulled a muscle in my lower back that froze me in my tracks. I took a couple prescription-strength Motrin that Cathy had, so I was able to eventually go sightseeing, but hiking was out of the question.

Figuring we might as well do a lot of driving instead of hiking, we headed for the East entrance to the Canyon, a little over 25 miles away from the RV Park. It took us about 40 minutes to go all the way out, and then about 4 1/2 hours to make our way back. There were 7 named viewpoints along the way back, and a couple pullouts, so it was a lot of starting and stopping.

We began at what is called Desert View Point, I think because there is a desert on the plateau behind the far side of the canyon.

Next was Navajo Point...they didn't have any explanation as to why it was called that, so we can only speculate.

Looking out from Lipan Point you can see where these prehistoric people used to live. They stayed in the sandy area near the Colorado River where it is curving in the 2nd picture.

Just a stitch pic from one of the unnamed overlooks.

Most of the viewing areas didn't have any information posted, but here at Moran Point they told us how the Spanish were the 1st Europeans to see the Canyon. The also talked about how hard/impossible it was for them to reach the bottom...looking at these pics, is it any wonder?

Riding from one point to another we saw this sign. In all our travels, we have never seen a sign for Mountain Lion crossings!!!!

The Grandview lookout point was probably the most spectacular. This quote just about sums up the whole experience!

Yaki Point was where we were trying to get to last night to see the sunset, and the last stop of the afternoon. We had to park our car and then walk about 1 mile along a paved road to get to this overlook, so I am glad I didn't find it last night...wouldn't want to be coming back from here in the dark, especially considering the Mountain Lion threat! At the far side of the Canyon is the North Rim of the canyon where Cathy and I were just about 2 weeks ago.

After dinner we headed out to the Rim View Trail, hoping to get some goods shots of the sunset again...I think we hit the jackpot, not only with sun going down, but check out the moon coming up!!! The colors are stunning!

Sunset at Rim View Trail

I loaded some videos today (as you can tell), but I may put them on the back burner in the near future. Blogspot.com, the host for this blog, has done something that allows me to load pictures much quicker than before, so I thought I would try to load some videos and see if they was quicker also...not! So I may just stick with pics...we'll see.

Anyway, another great day at the Grand Canyon. Can't wait to get out there again tomorrow!