A Trip to the Canyon Land - The Grand Canyons

The tickets were booked, accommodation arranged and rides reserved. But for some reason we were not feeling worked up. Looking forward but not really leaning in. We’d been to the New York City just the other weekend and it was hard to summon enough energy. Lethargy was kicking in after a hectic summer that ours was.

We packed our bags the last moment, literally dragging ourselves off the couch, because we could not put it off longer. And this happened -Don’t forget to pack the shoes! Expect a lot of walking!

And hats and sunscreen! Oh! The bottle’s exhausted. Can you please run to CVS and get some?
Not feeling like! Shall we get some once we get there?
Okay! Are you packing shorts?
Yes! You?
Yes!
So we, two brave souls, packed our shorts for our canyon trip without a bottle of sunscreen!

Friday, the first day of our trip was mostly driving. We started from Denver, CO and aimed to reach Moab, UT and break our journey there for the night. In the meanwhile, caught up with suddenly having twenty-six hours in the day (flying from the north-east corner of the country to the mountains in the west does that!), and the rainy mountain roads, and the darkest skies and the very blinking Milky Way we comfortably forgot that we didn’t have the sunscreen yet! Oh, and the awesome looking waitress at the local restaurant we stopped for our dinner. We all thought she suited better walking the ramps than waiting tables pulling night-shifts!

Photo Courtesy: My iPhone

It was only the next day when all the fun began! We drove straight five hours from Moab, UT to Grand Canyon, AZ, stopping only once for gas in a small local gas station. And drank their coffee! And was taken aback. It was nothing like coffee we were used to drinking. When we asked, we were given a toothy smile and informed that it was true “Indian” coffee! Native American that is. It was distinctly different in the aroma and taste, something I am okay not to try again!

We reached the Grand Canyon around noon. Our vacation officially began. The first view took my breath away. To imagine that a river as narrow as a ribbon with hardly any current was responsible for it, was almost impossible. The smooth sand rocks, its shadow on itself, in an eternal siesta under the burning sun for a few million years. No human can stand there and not feel goose bumps! And this is where I got my lost energy back too! We still didn’t have the sunscreen but suddenly it was no longer an issue.

The Grand Canyon

The ribbon like river Colorado

The river Colorado, eerily stagnant and strangely silent. Almost as if resting after creating this spectacle working relentlessly for five million years!

Despite several warnings to avoid driving during the night, we took the risk. Because my in-house photographer (Trolls, please excuse! He is my husband too!) said he was not going to miss the sunset in the canyons. And the reward was this.

The roads afterwards were empty and we glided through pretty uneventfully. We didn’t see any wildlife on the roads, as others had said we would, well, apart from an Elk family. No pictures here, as we were holding the edge of our seats, biting our lips and waiting for more to emerge, all the while remembering the movie - The Ring. Only to realize later that those were moose in the movie and not elks! The first day of our vacation drew to a close on a very high note. It would have been perfect even, had we not gone to the Deny’s opposite our hotel in Page, AZ to have our dinner. The Salmon they served us must have died around the same time the canyons started forming. Without going into any more details, I’d just say that I’d never look at buttered toasts the same way again. They were our saving grace at the end of a long grueling day!The next day would be yet another chapter in our novel-of-a-vacation to the canyonland.

Disclaimer: All images appearing in this blogpost are taken by the in-house photographer who prides himself as my husband. I am eternally grateful to him for capturing our vacation so wonderfully.

Riot of Random