We had a last hurrah in AZ with a 4-day trip to the Grand Canyon. Thursday we drove up north through Flagstaff and Sunset Crater National Park. It was raining when we arrived so the ash on the ground was entirely black. We hiked up a steep hill to get a better view of the ash flow and the crater now colonized by a slowly advancing pine forest.
After the park, we continued on to the site of some Native American ruins where we explored awhile before pressing on to the Canyon.
Friday morning we took a ranger-led fossil walk and a geology tour to learn more about the history of the canyon. This is me looking for some seashells in a fossil bed near the Bright Angel
trail. In the afternoon we watched the condors and took refuge from the rain inside the Kolb art studio. After the skies cleared, we took a park bus to hermit's rest where we admired the views and took a break to re-hydrate.
Saturday morning we piled onto a bus at 5:45 a.m. to head up to Glen Canyon dam on the border of
Arizona and Utah. After a long bus ride and a 2 mile ride down a completely dark tunnel, we found ourselves at the base of the dam on a beautiful river through a red-walled canyon. We spent the rest of the day floating down the river and enjoying the scenery. At one of our stops we braved the cold temps (the water was 42 degrees) and went for what might have been the shortest swim in history.
Sunday we drove back on a scenic state road that led us through pine forests and over the San Fransisco peaks. We took a quick roadside break to take a photo of this wedding chapel. We stopped for lunch in Jerome before braving the traffic back into Phoenix.
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