First Day At The Grand Canyon

2 October 2014

Weather: Sunny and 20C

Justin and I got up at the crack of dawn (6:00am) to get ready for the day.  We packed the Jeep and I had photographs taken with Heather, mum's third cousin.  

Heather's house in Tucson

Me and Heather

The view across the street from Heather's house

We said our goodbyes and drove off towards the Grand Canyon.  Stopping along the way to take photos of the cactus that grow in the hills near the highway, I think it was within the Agua Fria National Monument area.

Justin being a cactus

There is cactus' in those hills!

Traveling north pass Flagstaff we turned off for the Grand Canyon via Desert View Drive.  Stopping at Desert View Watchtower, an interesting structure built in 1932 and was designed by Mary Colter.  The building is in a Pueblo Indian style and at the top is an observation deck.  There is a National Parks gift shop as well and of course plenty of views of the Grand Canyon. This was our first view of the Canyon and the building added just another interest.

Justin at the entrance to the Grand Canyon

Dessert View Watchtower

Inside the
Desert View Watchtower

Observation Deck at the Desert View Watchtower

Me posing at the Grand Canyon

We stopped at the lookouts between the Desert View Watchtower and the Tusayan Museum and Ruins.  Again this historic site and museum added another dimension to your visit to the Grand Canyon and it is interesting to learn how the local Indian's lived in such a harsh environment.  The National Parks Service has a great website outlining the buildings to see when you visit www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/placestogo.htm .

Tusayan Ruins

We continued west as the day was getting late and we needed to check into our accommodation before sunset as I wanted to try to get as many sunsets and sunrises in as possible during our stay.  We checked into our room at 4:00pm at the Yavapai Lodge, the room was in East Yavapai, I had wanted to stay somewhere on the rim but that accommodation booked out too fast and this was all that was left for the dates we needed. The room was nicely decorated and I was glad that we managed to get somewhere in the Grand Canyon National Park at all.  

Our room at East Yavapai at the Yavapai Lodge

Having unloaded our luggage we drove to Yavapai Lookout to watch the sunset, but I found it to be very disappointing as the sun sets behind a large solid rock wall which is part of the Canyon so there was no casting of orange or pink glows across the Canyon like I expected.  Maybe this was because we were blessed with a beautiful clear day with no clouds.  Often sunsets look amazing as the colours are reflected in the clouds but during our stay there was little to no clouds.

Sunset at Yavapai Lookout

Sunset at Yavapai Lookout

Sunset at Yavapai Lookout

Sunset at Yavapai Lookout

After watching the sunset we had dined at the Yavapai Cafe where I had a Chicken Pot Pie and Justin had the 1/4 Chicken with jacket potato, rice and gravy.  For dessert Justin had the Chocolate mousse cake topped with ice-cream and I had the Peach slices in orange and pomegranate juice.  On the way back to our room we spied some Mule deer on the side of the road.  The evening was spent watching television in our room and was relaxing.

Mule deer